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Monday, December 7, 2015

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Scientists enlist the big gun to get climate action: Faith

PARIS (AP) — The cold hard numbers of science haven't spurred the world to curb runaway global warming. So as climate negotiators struggle in Paris, some scientists who appealed to the rationale brain are enlisting what many would consider a higher power: the majesty of faith.

AP Interview: Redford says fighting global warming is urgent

PARIS (AP) — American actor and environmental activist Robert Redford called global warming "an urgent matter" Friday and encouraged mayors to reduce local emissions even as world diplomats are trying to work out a global climate accord.

Orbital heads back to International Space Station on cargo run

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - An unmanned Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Florida on Sunday, sending a long-awaited Orbital ATK cargo ship on its way to the International Space Station for NASA. The Atlas 5, built and flown by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 4:44 p.m. EST (2104 GMT) after three days of delays to wait out poor weather and high winds. Dulles, Virginia-based Orbital, an aerospace and defense company with annual revenues of about $4.4 billion, hopes to return its own Antares rocket to flight in May, following an October 2014 launch accident.

Watt or Fleming? RBS seeks Scottish scientist for plastic banknote

Royal Bank of Scotland is asking the public to choose a Scottish scientist or other innovator to feature on its first plastic 10 pound note. Edinburgh-based RBS said on Monday nominees must be historical figures who are Scottish or have made a significant contribution to Scotland in the field of science and innovation. Graham Bell, who invented the telephone, and Watt, who improved the design and function of the steam engine, are both in the Scottish Science Hall of Fame.

Scientists enlist the big gun to get climate action: Faith

PARIS (AP) — The cold hard numbers of science haven't spurred the world to curb runaway global warming. So as climate negotiators struggle in Paris, some scientists who appealed to the rational brain are enlisting what many would consider a higher power: the majesty of faith.

Mysterious Egyptian Mummy Has Head Full of Dirt

A mysterious Egyptian mummy dating back about 3,200 years has dirt in the skull, a new investigation reveals. The presence of what looks like dark sediment inside the mummy's head is bizarre, said the researchers, who used computed tomography (CT) to peer inside the mummy. "It's some form of material added into the brain case while the brain was left inside," Jonathan Elias, the director of the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium, said in a statement.

Ancient 'Wand' May Be Oldest Example of Lead Work in the Levant

A lead and wood artifact discovered in a roughly 6,000-year-old grave in a desert cave is the oldest evidence of smelted lead on record in the Levant, a new study finds. The artifact, which looks like something between an ancient wand and a tiny sword, suggests that people in Israel's northern Negev desert learned how to smelt lead during the Late Chalcolithic, a period known for copper work but not lead work, said Naama Yahalom-Mack, the study's lead researcher and a postdoctoral student of archaeology with a specialty in metallurgy at the Institute of Earth Sciences and the Institute of Archaeology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Moreover, an analysis of the lead suggests that it came from Anatolia (in modern-day Turkey), which is part of the Levant, or the area encompassing the eastern Mediterranean.

Mark Zuckerberg's Donation: What Can You Buy with $45 Billion?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, made a shocking announcement this week, saying they would donate 99 percent of their financial worth over their lifetimes. Though the charitable act would have several tax benefits, as The New York Times pointed out, the power couple said they hope to use that money to "advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation," according to a long post by Zuckerberg on his Facebook page. In focusing on philanthropy, the duo joins other high-profile billionaires, such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, who have committed vast sums of money in an effort to reduce poverty and improve conditions around the world.

Superquiet Supersonic: NASA Aims for Softer Booms

The space agency is currently developing technologies that could make supersonic planes less noisy and therefore less "annoying" for those on the ground. NASA and its partners in the aviation industry are building "low-boom aircraft," with different designs than those used in older supersonic jets, like the retired Concorde. The new generation of planeswill have a body shape that reduces the "annoying noise, rattle and vibration" that occurs when aircraft break the sound barrier, creating the shock waves that produce sonic booms, NASA said.

400-Year-Old Embalmed Hearts Found Under French Convent

Four hundred years after they were buried in heart-shaped lead urns, five embalmed human hearts have been discovered in a cemetery in northwestern France. The hearts were discovered underneath the basement of the Convent of the Jacobins in Rennes, where archaeologists with France's National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research have been excavating graves for the past several years, ahead of a plan to turn the site into a conference center. So far, the archaeologists have unearthed hundreds of burials dating back to the late 16th or early 17th centuries, including the well-preserved corpse of a widow named Louise de Quengo, Lady of Brefeillac, who died in 1656.

New Superbug's Genetic Trick Could Help It Spread

Health experts are keeping a close eye on a type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria called CRE that, while still rare, has the potential to become more widespread in the United States. A new report released on Thursday said that in the past five years, researchers have identified 43 patients in the United States who became sick with infections from one type of CRE. These cases all involved CRE that share a particular method of defeating the antibiotics: they have enzymes called OXA-48-like carbapenemases that break down the drugs, said the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Wi-Fi 'Allergies': Is Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Real?

For some time now, people with unexplained and recurring headaches, dizziness and skin irritation have been blaming their often severe discomfort on sensitivity to electromagnetic field sources, a condition sometimes called electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS), according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In a recent case, the family of a 15-year-old girl in the United Kingdom who died by suicide said the girl had suffered from an allergy to Wi-Fi signals. Participants in a survey of people claiming to be suffering from EHS described physical symptoms such as headache and fatigue that appeared whenever they were close to devices that emit electromagnetic signals, such as Wi-Fi stations, cellphones and computer screens.

Many People Who Would Benefit from Statins Aren't Taking Them

The study found that cholesterol-lowering drugs would be recommended for about 78 million U.S. adults because they have either high cholesterol levels or risk factors for heart disease. And although lifestyle changes such as exercise and weight loss can help lower cholesterol levels, 35.5 percent of adults who would benefit from lowering their cholesterol levels said they aren't taking these drugs or making lifestyle changes to lower their cholesterol levels. Minority populations, including blacks and Mexican Americans, were less likely than whites to be taking cholesterol-lowering drugs, the researchers said.

9 Hacks for Making Healthier Holiday Cookies

When a huge array of holiday cookies is out on display, people do not have just one cookie and feel satisfied, said Libby Mills, a nutrition and cooking coach in Philadelphia and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Those extra calories can add up to too many, at a time when people are already frequently celebrating around food and beverages, Mills said. This is a good reason to be smart about the size of cookie that you eat or bake, and to stick with a smaller cookie, said Sara Haas, a dietitian and chef in Chicago and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Stick-Figure Science: Cartoonist Makes Complicated Stuff Simple

Randall Munroe once designed robots at NASA, and now he's undertaken a comparably tough task: describing the science of complex "stuff" such as elevators, the Mars Curiosity rover and nuclear reactors using only the 1,000 most commonly used words in the English language. Granted, Munroe's new book "Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words"(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015) contains diagrams of the things he's explaining, such as "boxes that make clothes smell better" (washing machines and dryers) and a "hole-making city boat" (oil rig), that help readers understand each concept. Munroe studied math and physics in college, but constantly worried that people would think he was stupid if he didn't always use the correct technical term, he said at a reading in New York City on Tuesday (Nov. 24), the day of his book's release.

CERN in a Shoebox? Tiny Particle Accelerators Are Coming

Scientists could soon develop particle accelerators that can fit into a shoebox, experts say. The project, which is still in its infancy, would rely on lasers, rather than microwaves, to ramp particles to near light speed. Using lasers, "you can accelerate particles in a shorter distance to get to a higher energy," said Joel England, a researcher at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, and one of the principal researchers involved in the project.

Little Male Songbird Makes Colorful Splash at Brooklyn Park

A stunningly colorful little male songbird has drawn a big crowd to Brooklyn's Prospect Park this week. The painted bunting (Passerina ciris), a member of the cardinal family, has never (in recent memory) been spotted in the treasured 526-acre (2.1 square kilometers) park. "This is the first recorded sighting of a male painted bunting in Brooklyn in recent memory," stated the Prospect Park Alliance.

Fusion power getting closer, say UK scientists

By Jim Drury As world leaders meet in Paris to agree a legal framework aimed at limiting use of fossil fuels and the resulting rises in global temperatures, a UK company says it could be as little as five years from making "reactor relevant" fusion, a potential game changer in energy production. A British company believes it is within five years of achieving "reactor relevant" fusion, a major landmark in the six decade long scientific search for the veritable Holy Grail of energy production. Fusion is how stars produce energy. It occurs when the nuclei of light atoms, such as hydrogen, are fused together under extreme pressure and heat. Tokamak Energy, from Oxfordshire, believes that the third version of their compact, spherical tokamak reactor will be able to reach temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius by 2020.

Chinese researchers unveil brain powered car

Chinese researchers have developed what they say is the country's first car that uses nothing but brain power to drive. The research team from Nankai University, in the north-eastern Chinese port city of Tianjin, has spent two years bringing the mind-controlled vehicle to reality. By wearing brain signal-reading equipment a driver can control the car to go forward, backwards, come to a stop, and both lock and unlock the vehicle, all without moving their hands or feet. Researcher Zhang Zhao told Reuters the equipment comprises 16 sensors that capture EEG (electroencephalogram) signals from the driver's brain. The core of the whole flow is to process the EEG signals, which is done on the computer," said Zhang. Associate Professor Duan Feng, from the university's College of Computer and Control Engineering, led the project.

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Saturday, December 5, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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AP Interview: Redford says fighting global warming is urgent

The Latest: Redford says fighting global warming is urgent

LE BOURGET, France (AP) — The latest news from the U.N. climate conference in Paris, which runs through Dec. 11. All times local:

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Friday, December 4, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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Hawaii court revokes permit for telescope project on volcano

Issuing the permit to construct a 180-foot high, $1.4 billion astronomical observatory on the Mauna Kea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island did not comply with case law, statutes or the state constitution, court documents showed. It also violated the protections of native Hawaiian customs and traditions. In November, the court temporarily blocked construction of the telescope, a collaboration between China, India, Canada, Japan and the United States, after a challenge by Native Hawaiians and environmentalists who said the project would damage sacred lands.

Habitat loss seen as rising threat to world's migratory birds

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Habitat destruction along routes taken by the world's migratory birds poses an increasing peril to these long-distance fliers, with a vast majority crossing terrain that nations are inadequately protecting, according to scientists. The researchers said on Thursday they tracked the migratory routes, stopover locations, breeding grounds and wintering locations of 1,451 migratory species and assessed about 450,000 protected areas like national parks and other reserves. "This is important because migratory species cover vast distances and rely on an intact series of habitats in which they can rest and feed on their long journeys," said conservation scientist Richard Fuller of the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) and the University of Queensland.

Federal Gun Research Still Stalled

Just hours before a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, left 14 dead Wednesday (Dec. 3), the group Doctors for America, which advocates for changes in the health care system, petitioned Congress to end the federal ban on gun violence research. It may have been a confusing request for many Americans — after all, President Barack Obama ordered an immediate end to the ban after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Shouldn't the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) be using federal funds to study the problem by now?

Gene summit organizers urge caution on human gene editing

By Julie Steenhuysen WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists and ethicists gathered at an international summit in Washington said it would be "irresponsible" to use gene editing technology in human embryos for therapeutic purposes, such as to correct genetic diseases, until safety and efficacy issues are resolved. The statement on Thursday comes amid a growing debate over the use of powerful new gene editing tools in human eggs, sperm and embryos, which have the power to change the DNA of unborn children. The group's guidance follows calls for various bans on use of the technology known as CRISPR-Cas9, which has quickly become the preferred method of gene editing in research labs because of its ease of use compared with older techniques.

Risk of Stillbirth Raised by Weight Gain Between Pregnancies

Weight gain between pregnancies may increase the risk of stillbirth or infant death, a new study from Sweden suggests. The researchers analyzed information from more than 450,000 women who had two pregnancies between 1992 and 2012. Women whose body mass index (BMI) increased by more than 4 points between pregnancies were about 50 percent more likely to have stillbirths in their second pregnancies than women whose weight was stable between pregnancies.

Too Much TV Really Is Bad for Your Brain

The people in the study who watched more than 3 hours of TV per day on average over the next 25 years were more likely to perform poorly on certain cognitive tests, compared with people who watched little TV, the researchers found. The results suggest that engaging in physical activity, as opposed to sitting and watching TV, is important for brain health, said study author Tina D. Hoang, of the Northern California Institute for Research and Education at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco. In the study, the researchers asked the participants every five years how many hours per day they spent watching TV on average during the past year.

China issues rules banning dishonesty in science publishing

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese regulators overseeing the field of academic publishing for scientific articles have rules explicitly banning dishonest practices.

Hawaii court revokes permit for telescope project on volcano

(Story corrects Thursday to Wednesday in paragraph 5) By Suzannah Gonzales (Reuters) - The Hawaii Supreme Court on Wednesday revoked a permit that would have allowed the controversial construction of one of the world's largest telescopes on a dormant volcano considered an ideal location on Earth to view the stars. Issuing the permit to construct a 180-foot high, $1.4 billion astronomical observatory on the Mauna Kea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island did not comply with case law, statutes or the state constitution, court documents showed. In November, the court temporarily blocked construction of the telescope, a collaboration between China, India, Canada, Japan and the United States, after a challenge by Native Hawaiians and environmentalists who said the project would damage sacred lands.

How Stupid Can You Be? Science Counts the Ways

Forrest Gump once said, "Stupid is as stupid does." Turns out, he was right.

'Spooky Action at a Distance' Author George Musser Talks Physics Loopholes

All of the phenomena are examples of nonlocality, which Albert Einstein famously described as "spooky action at a distance." (The book's subtitle refers to the phenomenon's significance to black holes, the Big Bang and theories of everything.) There are hints of nonlocality in multiple fields of physics, and Musser chronicles the messy struggle to understand how it fits into the theories and assumptions that make up physicists' understanding of the universe. Space.com talked with Musser about his new book and the concept of nonlocality, which he called unsettling, in the sense of something that drives research forward — unsettling but also intriguing.

New Type of Carbon Is Harder and Brighter Than Diamonds

"This new phase is very unique," said study co-author Jagdish Narayan, a materials scientist at North Carolina State University. In this subterranean pressure cooker, carbon dioxide molecules were crushed with pressures of about 725,000 lbs. per square inch (5 million kilopascals) and heated to a sweltering 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 degrees Celsius), according to a 2012 study in the journal Nature.

Leonardo da Vinci robot wows Tokyo crowd

The International Robot Exhibition 2015 (iREX) opened its doors to the public on Wednesday (December 2) at the Tokyo Big Sight center for five days of displays and seminars on the latest robot technology. Attracting much attention were disaster response robots created by Japan's NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization). "Most of our jobs, of course, are for human beings, and so we think humanoids can handle these kinds of things," explained Satoshi Kochiyama, Project Manager in the Machine Systems Department.

Lightest Metal Ever Is 99.9 Percent Air

How do you build the world's lightest metal? The material, known as a "microlattice," was developed by scientists at HRL Laboratories in Malibu, California, which is co-owned by Boeing and General Motors. The new microlattice is made up of a network of tiny hollow tubes and is roughly 100 times lighter than Styrofoam.

Map of World's Groundwater Shows Planet's 'Hidden' Reservoirs

The map — the first of its kind — provides a visual representation of Earth's groundwater resources and estimates that the planet's total groundwater supply stands at approximately 5.5 million cubic miles (about 23 million cubic kilometers).

Biblical King's Royal Seal Unearthed Near Temple Mount

The royal seal of an ancient biblical king has been unearthed near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The seal, a clay impression depicting a two-winged sun with two ankh symbols on either side, was once used to seal papyrus documents associated with King Hezekiah, who ruled the kingdom of Judea from 727 B.C. to 698 B.C. The seal was unearthed in a trash heap near the walls of the ancient Temple Mount. "Although seal impressions bearing King Hezekiah's name have already been known from the antiquities market since the middle of the 1990s — some with a winged scarab (dung beetle) symbol and others with a winged sun — this is the first time that a seal impression of an Israelite or Judean king has ever come to light in a scientific archaeological excavation," Eilat Mazar, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who led the excavations, said in a statement.

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