Tuesday, March 1, 2016

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Scientists find Zika increases risk of rare neurological illness

French scientists say they have proved a link between the Zika virus and a nerve syndrome called Guillain-Barre, suggesting countries hit by the Zika epidemic will see a rise in cases of the serious neurological condition. Guillain-Barre (GBS) is a rare syndrome in which the body's immune system attacks part of the nervous system. In a retrospective study analyzing data from a Zika outbreak in French Polynesia during 2013 and 2014, researchers led by Arnaud Fontanet of France's Institut Pasteur calculated the estimated risk of developing Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) at 2.4 for every 10,000 people infected by Zika.


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Lockheed unit to help design quieter supersonic passenger jet: NASA

(Reuters) - NASA on Monday announced a contract award to Lockheed Martin Corp's unit for the preliminary design of a "low boom" flight demonstration aircraft. NASA's Commercial Supersonic Technology Project had asked industry teams to submit design concepts for a test aircraft that can fly at supersonic speeds, creating a supersonic "heartbeat" - a soft thump rather than the disruptive boom currently associated with supersonic flight.

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Really? Millennials Probably Not Too Lazy to Eat Cereal

Millennials may not be eating cereal, but it's not because they're lazy. Internet outrage erupted last week after a New York Times food column on cereal reported that 40 percent of millennials said cereal is an inconvenient food because it requites cleanup after eating.

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New Scans of King Tut's Tomb May Reveal Hidden Burial Chamber

On April 2, a new series of radar scans will be performed on King Tutankhamun's tomb to search for hidden chambers that may contain an undiscovered royal burial, Egypt's antiquities ministry has announced. The announcement comes after stories were published in numerous media outlets last week claiming that Egypt's tourism minister, Hisham Zazou, had told the Spanish news outlet ABC that the chambers had been proven to exist and contain numerous treasures. Last year, University of Arizona Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves published findings suggesting that there are hidden chambers behind a wall in Tutankhamun's tomb.


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Oldest Nervous System Found in 520-Million-Year-Old Fossil

Fossils of an ancient creature resembling a shrimp with an armored head contain the oldest and best-preserved nervous system ever found, which could help scientists decipher the evolution of nervous systems in animals alive today, according to a new study. The remarkable remains belonged to Chengjiangocaris kunmingensis, a crustaceanlike creature that lived 520 million years ago in what is now South China. The fossils revealed a long "ropelike" central nerve cord that extended throughout the body, with visible clusters of nerve tissue arranged along the cord, like beads strung on a thread.


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Moving Ink: Cool Animation Tech Brings Tattoos to Life

In July 2015, Oskar & Gaspar, a collective of multimedia and visual artists based in Portugal, staged a landmark event in Lisbon, Portugal, called "Ink Mapping" that used projection mapping to transform tattoos into dynamic works of art. Projection mapping combines traditional projection technology with software that conforms the projected media to fit within the boundaries of a three-dimensional surface — like a building façade — rather than a flat, rectangular screen. This allows artists to design motion sequences that follow a unique pathway of planes, curves and crevices, embracing the architecture and structure of the projection surface as part of the visual story.


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Zika Virus Linked to Guillain-Barré in New Study

A new study from French Polynesia provides the strongest evidence to date of a link between the Zika virus and the rare neurological condition Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), researchers said. In GBS, a person's own immune system damages the nerve cells, causing muscle weakness, and sometimes, paralysis in adults and children. In the new study, researchers analyzed blood samples from 42 adults who were diagnosed with Guillain-Barré between November 2013 and February 2014 during the Zika virus outbreak in French Polynesia.


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How to Start Exercising Again After Pregnancy

But with a new bundle of joy, finding the time to exercise can be challenging. But postpartum physical activity doesn't have to drain your time — here are four tips to get back in action after having a baby. Gone are the days when doctors commonly recommended bed rest for pregnant women.

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Aerojet on track to complete work on AR1 rocket engine by 2019 - CEO

Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc is on track to complete development of its AR1 rocket engine by 2019 as a replacement for the Russian-built RD-180 engine after receiving a funding "booster shot" from the U.S. Air Force on Monday, Chief Executive Officer Eileen Drake told Reuters on Tuesday. Drake said the Air Force's $115-million contract for work on the AR1 prototype, along with options that could increase the government's investment to $501 million in coming years, moved the U.S. military a step closer to ending its reliance on Russian engines for national space launches.

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Monday, February 29, 2016

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Musk's SpaceX rocket launch canceled at final countdown

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - At the last second, Elon Musk's SpaceX scrubbed plans to launch a Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday, again delaying an attempt to put an satellite into orbit and then land the vehicle's first stage intact on a sea platform, a step that may eventually slash costs. The 23-story rocket, carrying a communications satellite for Luxembourg-based SES SA, was less than two minutes from blast-off at 6:47 p.m. when the launch team aborted the countdown, SpaceX said during a webcast. Musk, founder and chief executive of SpaceX, said that Air Force safety officers stopped the countdown after a boat strayed into a restricted zone east of SpaceX's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch site.


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Minds Everywhere: 'Panpsychism' Takes Hold in Science

Is consciousness nothing more than the firing of neurons in the brain? Many objects people think of as conscious may not be, while some that are considered inanimate may in fact have much greater consciousness than previously thought, Koch said.

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Earth's Early Ocean Was No Scalding Sea

Rocks from the deep past, some 3.5 billion years ago when life first appeared on the planet, were deposited on a deep, cold ocean floor, not in a scalding sea, a new study suggests. "This is the first evidence that over the entire 3.5 billion years, Earth has operated within a temperature range that suits life," said lead study author Maarten de Wit, a professor at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. To take the temperature of Earth's ancient ocean, the researchers trekked to the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa.


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5D Black Holes Could Break Relativity

Ring-shaped, five-dimensional black holes could break Einstein's theory of general relativity, new research suggests. "Here we may have a first glimpse that four space-time dimensions is a very, very good choice, because otherwise, something pretty bad happens in the universe," said Ulrich Sperhake, a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge in England. From the beginning, Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes how matter warps space-time, predicted its own demise.


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Dutch Buzz: Bees Get Smaller, Men Taller

A team of scientists took a closer look at declining bee populations in the Netherlands and discovered something unexpected — it wasn't just the bee populations that were shrinking. Over nearly a century and a half, big-bodied female bee species in the Netherlands have reduced in size by about 7 percent, according to a new study, the first to investigate variations in Dutch bee size over time.


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Ancient Stubby-Legged Reptiles with Tiny Heads Were World Travelers

Before dinosaurs roamed the planet, tanklike herbivores called pareiasaurs — barrel-chested and stubby-legged turtle relatives — reigned as Earth's first large plant-eaters. With tiny heads and bony knobs studding their skulls and bodies, pareiasaurs wouldn't have won many beauty contests. Pareiasaurs lived during the Permian era, about 266 million to 252 million years ago.


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Obama encouraging young people to learn math, science

President Barack Obama is launching a version of "take your child to work day" that's focused on America's science laboratories instead of its corporate workspaces. It's part of Obama's effort ...


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At Least 9 Pregnant Women in US Infected with Zika: CDC

Nine pregnant women in the U.S. have now been confirmed to have had Zika virus infections that they contracted through travel to places where the virus is spreading, U.S. health officials said today. Among the nine cases in the pregnant women, three babies have been born, including two who showed no signs of illness and one who had severe microcephaly, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two women are continuing their pregnancies, and so far, there have been no signs of problems with the fetuses.

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Checking Embryo Viability? Give It a Good Squeeze

In fact, the technique of gently squeezing a series of embryos appears to be the most accurate way for researchers to figure out which one to select for implantation, according to the study published Wednesday (Feb. 24) in the journal Nature Communications. Tests that involve implanting embryos chosen this way into human patients may start soon, the researchers said.


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How to Gain Weight During Pregnancy, the Healthy Way

Gaining weight during pregnancy is both natural and essential. Women may think that "being pregnant gives them the license to eat anything," said Katherine Tallmadge, a registered dietitian and an op-ed contributor to Live Science. Indeed, studies show that the amount of weight a woman gains during pregnancy plays a major role in how much she'll lose after giving birth.

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Funeral Feast? Butchered Turtles in Ancient Grave Hint at Ritual

In an ancient settlement on the banks of the Tigris River in Turkey, archaeologists have made a strange discovery: 17 butchered soft-shelled turtles in the grave of a woman and child. As there are no marks of trauma or injuries, it's not clear how the two people buried with the turtles died.


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'Mojoe' on the Go: New Thermos Doubles as Portable Coffeemaker

Hyman first dreamed up what would become the mojoe when he was a college student studying late at night in the library. The mojoe is the first of its kind, Hyman said, because unlike other portable coffeemakers on the market, the mojoe does not require you to heat water before brewing, and it can withstand superhot temperatures. To create a self-contained coffee-brewing system within a travel mug, Hyman and his team figured out how to combine aspects of drip brewing with vacuum brewing in a small, light and durable device.


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Physics of Skipping Stones Could Make Bounceable Naval Weapons

"A text titled 'The Art of Shooting [in] Great Ordnaunce' by William Bourne was likely published in 1578, and is the first known account to mention that if cannonballs are fired at a sufficiently low angle they will ricochet across the water surface," said study co-author Tadd Truscott, a fluid dynamicist at Utah State University in Logan. "This bomb was made to spin at a great rate before impact, enabling it to move along the water surface and avoid torpedo nets on its way to destroy key German dams," Truscott told Live Science. "Water impact has been heavily studied for the past 100 years, with motivations ranging from understanding the physics of seaplane landing to, more commonly, a simple desire to better understand the world in which we live," Truscott said.


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Bill Gates 'Discovers' 14-Year-Old Formula on Climate Change

Bill Gates just released a climate science equation that explains how the world can lower carbon dioxide emissions "down to zero," according to the 2016 edition the annual letter he and his wife, Melinda, published. But instead of grilling Gates about the origins of the formula, climate scientists are glad he's talking about it, said Michael Mann, a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University. The genesis of Gates' equation might remain a mystery for now — the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation didn't return Live Science's requests for comment.


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Sunday, February 28, 2016

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Virtual reality 'heroin cave' aimed at helping addicts kick habit

By Amanda Orr HOUSTON (Reuters) - Addicts in a new study at the University of Houston will strap on virtual reality headsets and navigate a "heroin cave" to help them try and kick their addictions. Researchers are looking to see if making their way through a simulated house party crammed with stimuli aimed at evoking cravings for the drug will help better equip those who suffer from addiction to do so in the real world. The heroin environments, a house party where the drug is snorted and one where it is injected, took nearly a year to complete to ensure realism, its creators said. ...


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China to launch second space lab in third-quarter: state media

China will put a second space laboratory in orbit in the third quarter of this year, state news agency Xinhua said on Sunday, part of the country's plan to have a permanent manned space station in service around 2022. Advancing China's space program is a priority for Beijing, with President Xi Jinping calling for the country to establish itself as a space power. Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) 2 is expected to be docked with a cargo ship, Tianzhou 1 (Heavenly Vessel) which is scheduled to be launched in the first half of next year, Xinhua said.


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Saturday, February 27, 2016

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Extremely Hot and Incredibly Close: How Hot Jupiters Defy Theory

Paul Sutter is a visiting scholar at The Ohio State University's Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics (CCAPP). In fact, in the early days of a solar system's formation, planets are a little rambunctious: squirrely little toddlers jostling about underfoot.


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