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	(Sponsor this newsletter) Can Apple's 'Night Shift' Really Help You Sleep Better? A new iPhone feature called "Night Shift" automatically adjusts the screen's colors to warmer hues after sunset, on the premise that this change could help people sleep better. Night Shift is now available as part of Apple's latest mobile operating system update, iOS 9.3, which was released Monday (March 21). The feature uses the iPhone or iPad's clock and geolocation services to determine when sunset is happening in your area, and then automatically adjusts the screen's colors to redder, or warmer, colors, Apple says. Read More » After Zika Infection, People Should Wait Months to Conceive Children, CDC Says People who have been infected with Zika virus should wait at least several months before they attempt to conceive a child, according to new recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Women who are diagnosed with Zika or who experience symptoms of the disease after possible exposure to Zika should wait at least eight weeks after their symptoms started before trying to become pregnant, the CDC said. For men, the recommended wait is much longer: Those who have been infected with Zika or who have symptoms of it should wait at least six months before attempting to conceive a child, the agency said. Read More » Ancient Mini Weapons Likely Made to Please Gods Bows, arrows, daggers and battle-axes made of bronze found in Arabia may have been offerings to a deity of war, researchers said. These artifacts are the first miniature, imitation weapons that archaeologists have found in prehistoric Arabia, and might shed light on the practices of the mysterious peoples who created the artifacts, scientists added. This new cache of artifacts dates to the Iron Age, which lasted from about 900 B.C. to 600 B.C. The collection was uncovered in the Sultanate of Oman, a country on the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, near the town of Adam, which is located at the frontier between Oman's desert and oasis regions. Read More » Amazing Blind Cavefish Walks Up Rocks and Waterfalls When the first water-dwelling creature wriggled up onto land about 400 million years ago, it took the first steps down an evolutionary path that would eventually lead to a diverse range of tetrapods — animals with backbones and four limbs — that navigate the world in a number of ways. Read More » Eating More 'Healthy Fats' May Lower Diabetes Risk Replacing some of the meat and cheese in your diet with vegetable oils or nuts could help slow the progression of diabetes in some people, according to a small new study. People with "prediabetes" have levels of blood sugar, or glucose, that are higher than normal but not high enough to warrant being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. In 2012, 86 million Americans age 20 and older had prediabetes, and 29.1 million had diabetes, with the vast majority of the cases being type 2, according to the American Diabetes Association. Read More » WWII-Era Bell from Sunken Japanese Submarine Recovered A bronze bell from a sunken World War II-era Japanese submarine was recently recovered off the coast of Oahu, in Hawaii. The bell was retrieved from the underwater remains of the I-400, an Imperial Japanese Navy mega submarine that was captured and intentionally sunk by U.S. forces in 1946. The massive vessel was one of the Japanese Navy's Sen Toku-class submarines. Read More » Affordable Hypersonic Jets Could Be High-Flying Reality by 2023 Hypersonic aircraft and weapons that can fly more than five times the speed of sound may seem like a futuristic fantasy, but defense giant Lockheed Martin says it is committed to making these ultrafast innovations a reality. In fact, Lockheed Martin is doubling down on hypersonic aerospace technologies, Lockheed officials said recently at the company's Media Day. "Lockheed Martin continues to invest in propulsion technologies and advanced materials needed for hypersonic speeds," Marillyn A. Hewson, Lockheed Martin president and CEO, said in a statement on March 15. Read More » New Ultrathin Solar Cells Are Light Enough to Sit on a Soap Bubble Scientists have created the thinnest, lightest solar power cells yet — so lightweight that they can be draped on top of a soap bubble without popping it. Solar cells, technically known as photovoltaic cells, directly convert energy from light into electricity. The new solar cells are as small as 1.3 microns thick. Read More » Alaska Volcano Erupts, Spewing Ash 20,000 Feet into the Air A snow- and ice-covered volcano located in Alaska's Aleutian Islands erupted Sunday (March 27), spewing a cloud of ash about 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) into the sky, the Alaska Volcano Observatory reported. The area also had elevated seismic activity at 3:53 p.m. local time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). In response, the Alaska Volcano Observatory raised the volcano alert level to "warning," and the aviation color code to "red," meaning that an eruption is imminent or underway and putting high levels of ash into the atmosphere. Read More » Season of Birth Genetically Linked to Allergy Risk People born in the fall and winter seem to have an increased risk of certain allergic diseases such as asthma, studies have shown, and now scientists may have found one reason why. In a new study of people in England, researchers found that certain markers on the DNA are linked to the seasons in which people are born, and these markers also seem to mediate people's risk of allergic diseases. The results suggest that some environmental factor that varies from one season to another may also drive the changes in these markers, the researchers said. Read More » Aloha, You Old Bat: Extinct Critter Doubles Hawaii's Land Mammal Species Hawaii just doubled the number of known land mammal species that are native to the islands, thanks to the discovery of a number of fossils representing a tiny bat named Synemporion keana. Found in 13 cave sites over five islands — Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui and Hawaii —the fossils described in a new study represent at least 110 individuals and reveal a bat that was notably different from the only other land mammal species that is endemic to Hawaii — the Hawaiian hoary bat. Many of S. keana's bones were found in the same locations as hoary bat fossils, suggesting to scientists that the bats shared habitats. Read More »
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FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

	Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News
	(Sponsor this newsletter) Tiny Artificial Life: Lab-Made Bacterium Sports Smallest Genome Yet An artificial bacterial genome with the smallest number of genes needed for life has been created in a lab, opening the way for creating synthetic organisms with customized sets of genes aimed at specific tasks, such as eating oil. The newly created bacterium, which can metabolize nutrients and self-replicate (divide and reproduce), brings the team one step closer to building custom artificial life with particular functionalities, they said. The artificial bacterium has only 473 genes, compared with the thousands that exist in wild bacteria. Read More » With the Right 'Words,' Science Can Pull Anyone In (Op-Ed) Paul Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University and the chief scientist at COSI Science Center. Sutter is also host of the podcasts Ask a Spaceman and RealSpace, and the YouTube series Space In Your Face. The language that physicists and astronomers use to describe the natural world around us and the vast cosmos above us is just that — mathematics. Read More » You're Surrounded: New Tech Unleashing 3D Audio David Pedigo is the senior director of learning & emerging trends at CEDIA. With movies like "Mockingjay: Part 2," "Sicario" and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," we're becoming genuinely immersed in the action of these films through a new approach to audio. Read More » 6 of the World's Best Cities to Be a Scientific Genius More than a backdrop to innovation, certain cities in the United States and around the world have emerged as active innovation centers, where forward-thinking public and private-sector investment is focused on attracting scientists and other innovators to live and work in the region. Do you live in a global innovation hub? Read More » Isaac Newton's Recipe for Magical 'Philosopher's Stone' Rediscovered One of Isaac Newton's 17th-century alchemy manuscripts, buried in a private collection for decades, reveals his recipe for a material thought to be a step toward concocting the magical philosopher's stone. The "philosopher's stone" was a mythical substance that alchemists believed had magical properties and could even help humans achieve immortality. The manuscript turned up at an auction at Bonhams in Pasadena, California, on Feb. 16, where the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) in Philadelphia bought it. Read More »
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FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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	(Sponsor this newsletter) Stripped-down synthetic organism sheds light on nature of life By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists on Thursday announced the creation of a synthetic organism stripped down to the bare essentials with the fewest genes needed to survive and multiply, a feat at the microscopic level that may provide big insights on the very nature of life. Genome research pioneer J. Craig Venter called the bacterial cell his research team designed and constructed the "most simple of all organisms." While the human genome possesses more than 20,000 genes, the new organism gets by with only 473. Read More » Dracula Science: How Long Does It Take for a Vampire to Drain Blood? A team of university students recently combined vampire lore with the study of fluid dynamics — the physics of how liquid behaves — to find out. Their findings, timed to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the classic vampire film "Dracula" (1931), were published online in the 2015 issue of the University of Leicester's Journal of Physics Special Topics. The student researchers considered how long a vampire could sip from a human host — easily accessed by a bite to the neck — before blood loss would trigger changes in heart rate, based on average blood pressure and the velocity of blood flow in the external carotid artery, the main avenue for blood traveling away from the heart. Read More » Live Sumatran Rhino Captured in Indonesia A live Sumatran rhinoceros has been captured in the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo, a region where these critically endangered animals were thought to be extinct. A single camera-trap image and telltale footprints found in 2013 had previously revealed that Sumatran rhinos (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) still survived in Kalimantan, which makes up the southern 73 percent of Borneo. Conservation groups estimate that fewer than 100 Sumatran rhinos are left in the wild, most of which live on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, located west of Borneo. Read More » Mystery of Long-Lost Navy Tugboat Is Solved The disappearance of the U.S. Navy tugboat USS Conestoga 95 years ago has stymied experts for nearly a century. The tugboat and its crew of 56 officers and sailors were last seen on March 25, 1921, when the Conestoga departed Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California on its way to American Samoa. But yesterday (March 23), the location of the Conestoga finally came to light. Read More » Debris Belongs to Doomed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Experts Say Two pieces of plane debris discovered in Mozambique very likely belong to the doomed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which went missing two years ago en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, the Australian government announced today (March 24). The Malaysian investigation team for MH370 reported that the pieces, which were discovered Feb. 27, are consistent with panels from a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft, said Darren Chester, the Australian minister for infrastructure and transport. "The analysis has concluded the debris is almost certainly from MH370," Chester said in a statement. Read More » Print Your Hike! 3D Keepsakes Memorialize Mountain Conquests Hikers who have conquered some of the most challenging trails and want to show off these accomplishments can now memorialize their impressive feats in stunning 3D-printed sculptures made from their GPS tracks. Nice Trails, a project started by Oscar Ardaiz, a computer science Ph.D. candidate based in Barcelona, Spain, creates models, or "trophies," that visualize GPS-tracked hiking trails, cycling trails or other mountainous routes in three dimensions. A user can simply upload and save a GPS track to the project's website, and Nice Trails will create a 3D-printed replica of the path and the surrounding terrain. Read More » Women with Oral HPV Also Usually Have Vaginal HPV Infections with the human papillomavirus (HPV) in the mouth or throat are not common, but a new study finds that about three-quarters of women who do have an oral HPV infection also have a vaginal HPV infection. The study also found that women who'd had two or more oral sex partners in the past year were three times more likely to have both oral and vaginal infections with the same strain of HPV (called a concordant infection) than women who'd had no oral sex partners in the past year. The findings support the "genital-oral transmission theory," the researchers said, in which an HPV infection of the genitals is transmitted to the mouth or throat through oral sex. Read More » Exercise May Stave Off Cognitive Decline Older people who exercise may experience a slower rate of cognitive decline than those who don't exercise, according to a new study. The people in the study who did not exercise at all or who exercised very little experienced a decline in their memory and thinking skills equal to 10 extra years of cognitive aging compared with the people who were more physically active. "More and more evidence is suggesting that exercise is good for the brain, and in this observational study, we found that people who were more active declined less on certain tests than people who were less active," said study co-author Dr. Clinton B. Wright, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Miami in Florida. Read More » Is 'Cat Litter' Parasite Making You a Rageaholic? Uncontrollable, explosive bouts of anger such a road rage might be the result of an earlier brain infection from the toxoplasmosis parasite, an organism found in cat feces, a new study finds. In the study of more than 350 adults, those with a psychiatric disorder called Intermittent Explosive Disorder, or IED, were twice as likely to have been infected by the toxoplasmosis parasite compared with healthy individuals with no psychiatric diagnosis. The study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that toxoplasmosis — usually a mild or nonsymptomatic infection from a protozoan parasite called Toxoplasma gondii — may somehow alter people's brain chemistry to cause long-term behavior problems. Read More » Couples' Caffeine Use Linked to Higher Risk of Miscarriage Couples who wish to get pregnant may want to avoid caffeine because it's associated with an increased risk of miscarriage, a new study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) suggests. But women's caffeine consumption wasn't the only factor: Among couples in which the male partner drank more than two caffeinated beverages daily before conception, there was a 73 percent higher risk of a miscarriage, according to the study. Read More » Heart Attack Patients Are Getting Younger, and Sicker People who experience the most severe type of heart attack have become younger and more obese in the past two decades, according to a new study. This group is also increasingly more likely to smoke, and to have high blood pressure and diabetes, all of which are preventable risk factors for a heart attack, the researchers found. "On the whole, the medical community has done an outstanding job of improving treatments for heart disease, but this study shows that we have to do better on the prevention side," study co-author Dr. Samir Kapadia, an interventional cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic, said in a statement. Read More » Zika Virus Was in Brazil a Year Before It Was Detected The Zika virus was likely circulating in Brazil for more than a year before it was detected, according to a new genetic analysis of a small number of Zika samples from Brazil. Airline data from that time show an upsurge in the number of people traveling to the country, particularly from areas where Zika was circulating. The findings suggest that, contrary to previous speculations, fans who attended the FIFA World Cup or a championship canoe race, held in Brazil in 2014, aren't to blame for bringing the virus into the country. Read More »
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