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Thursday, May 5, 2016

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Governments should study worst-case global warming scenarios, former U.N. official says

By Sebastien Malo PISCATAWAY, N.J. (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A United Nations panel of scientists seeking ways for nations to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius should not dissuade governments from concentrating on bleaker scenarios of higher temperatures as well, its former chief said on Wednesday. Nations should be considering the potential impact of temperature rises of much as 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 Fahrenheit), said Robert Watson, former head of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The U.N. panel was assigned to find ways to limit global warming to 1.5C (2.7F) after a 195-nation climate change summit in Paris in December.

Australia's Surprising Weapon Against Invasive Fish: Herpes

The Australian government recently announced an unusual initiative to eradicate a long-standing animal pest problem. To rid their streams and rivers of invasive European carp crowding out native freshwater species, officials plan to begin introducing a strain of the herpes virus — Cyprinid herpesvirus 3 (CyHV-3), or "carp herpes" — into fish populations. In a statement released May 1, Australian Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR) officials described their National Carp Control Plan, which will be developed over the next two and a half years at a cost of approximately AU$15 million (about US$11.2 million) and potentially deployed by 2018.

New Print-Out Lasers Are So Cheap They're Disposable

Using inkjet printers, scientists have made laser devices cheap enough to be thrown out after a single use. Lasers create their high-energy beams using a so-called gain medium, which takes advantage of the interactions between the electrons of its atoms and incoming photons to amplify light to high intensities. Typically, the gain medium is made from inorganic materials such as glasses, crystals or gallium-based semiconductors, but in recent years, researchers have investigated using organic carbon-based dyes instead.

Mysterious Braided Hair May Belong to Medieval Saint

Jamie Cameron, an archaeological research assistant at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, first visited Romsey Abbey, near the city of Southampton, on a school field trip when he was 7 years old. The Relics Cluster — dubbed the "Da Vinci Code Unit" by British newspapers, after the popular novel by author Dan Brown — is an interdisciplinary group of scientists that specializes in testing sacred objects and religious relics.

World's Tiniest Engines Could Power Microscopic Robots

"There have been many small machines, but they operate incredibly slowly — taking many seconds or minutes to move a single arm, for instance — and with very low forces," said Jeremy Baumberg, director of the University of Cambridge's NanoPhotonics Centre and senior author of the new study. "For a nanomachine floating in water, swimming is like us swimming in a pool of treacle [a blend of molasses, sugar and corn syrup] — very, very viscous — so you need very large forces to move," Baumberg told Live Science. When the engine is cooled, the gel takes on water and expands, and the gold nanoparticles are strongly and quickly pushed apart, like a spring, the researchers explained.

Primate fate: Chinese fossils illuminate key evolutionary period

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A treasure trove of fossils of six furry critters that inhabited the trees of southern China 34 million years ago is providing a deeper understanding of a pivotal moment in the evolution of primates, the group that eventually gave rise to people. Scientists on Thursday announced the discovery of the remains of six previously unknown extinct primate species: four similar to Madagascar's lemurs, one similar to the nocturnal insect- and lizard-eating tarsiers of the Philippines and Indonesia, and one monkey-like primate. The primate lineage that led to monkeys, apes and people, called anthropoids, originated in Asia, with their earliest fossils dating from 45 million years ago.

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Wednesday, May 4, 2016

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The Real Reason Your Lab Is Fat

When your dog looks up at you hopefully with big, sad eyes, begging for a treat, it can be hard to say no — in spite of your best intentions for restricting your pet to a healthier diet. And one dog breed tests their owners more frequently, with more persistent begging than other breeds, according to a new study. Labrador retrievers were found to be more inclined than other dog breeds to beg for treats, and to generally engage in behaviors related to getting more food.

Land titles for farmers help cut Brazil's forest loss: scientist

By Chris Arsenault RIO DE JANEIRO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Brazil should speed up its program to grant small farmers formal land ownership to slow down the rate of logging and deforestation, a leading scientist said. Farmers on small holdings are responsible for about 30 percent of the logging and destruction of Brazil's vast forests, up from about 23 percent 10 years ago, said Daniel Nepstad, executive director of the California-based Earth Innovation Institute. "A lack of clear land title pushes small farmers to opt for cattle (rearing) instead of more intensive (food) production" said Nepstad, a specialist with 30 years of experience tracking Amazon deforestation told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

5 Delightfully Tech-y Dresses from the 2016 Met Gala

This year's Met Gala showed the world what happens when high fashion meets cutting-edge technology. The theme of the gala, which benefits the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, was "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology" — and many of the event's celebrity guests took the theme to heart, blending their couture looks with supercool tech. (The event was co-hosted by Apple's chief design officer, Jonathan Ive.) Here are five of Live Science's favorite looks from the star-studded event.

Major Depression Might Be Averted by Online Help: Study

People who may be sliding toward depression might be able to prevent the full-blown disorder by completing some self-help exercises online, a new study suggests. Researchers found that men and women who had some symptoms of depression and used a web-based mental health program that was supported by an online trainer were less likely to experience a major depressive episode during a 1-year follow-up period, compared with people who also had symptoms of depression but were only given online access to educational materials about the signs of depression and its treatment. The results of the study suggest that a web-based, guided self-help intervention could effectively reduce the risk of major depressive disorder or at least delay its onset, said lead study author Claudia Buntrock, a doctoral student in psychology at Leuphana University in Lueneburg, Germany.

For first time, scientists grow two-week-old human embryos in lab

By Kate Kelland LONDON(Reuters) - Scientists have for the first time grown human embryos outside of the mother for almost two full weeks into development, giving unique insight into what they say is the most mysterious stage of early human life. Scientists had previously only been able to study human embryos as a culture in a lab dish until the seventh day of development when they had to implant them into the mother's uterus to survive and develop further. "This it the most enigmatic and mysterious stage of human development," said Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a University of Cambridge professor who co-led the work.

Best Treatment for Preschoolers with ADHD Is Not Meds, CDC Urges

Many young children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) aren't receiving the top recommended treatment for the condition, a new report suggests. The report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, looked at insurance claims for 5 million U.S. children, ages 2 to 5, who were all receiving treatment for ADHD. The researchers said they wanted to see how many of these children received behavioral therapy, now recommended as the first treatment to try for young kids who have the condition.

Deadly Mistakes: Medical Errors Are 3rd Leading Cause of Death

Medical errors may be the third leading cause of death in the United States, a new review suggests. The next most common cause of death after medical errors was chronic lower respiratory infection, which accounted for nearly 150,000 deaths that year, the researchers found. But because of how deaths are currently reported in the U.S., medical errors are rarely listed as the cause of death, said the review, published today (May 3) in the journal BMJ.

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Tuesday, May 3, 2016

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Newly discovered planets may boost search for life beyond Earth

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - The discovery of three planets that circle a small, dim star could bolster the chances of finding life beyond Earth, astronomers said on Monday. The Earth-sized planets are orbiting their parent star, located in the constellation Aquarius relatively close to Earth at 40 light years away, at a distance that provides the right amount of heat for there to be liquid water on their surface, a condition scientists believe may be critical for fostering life. The discovery marked the first time that planets were found orbiting a common type of star known as an ultra-cool dwarf, the scientists said.

Solar-powered plane lands in Arizona on round-the-world flight

By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A solar-powered airplane midway through a historic bid to circle the globe completed the tenth leg of its journey on Monday, landing in Arizona after a 16-hour flight from California, the project team said. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived in Phoenix shortly before 9 p.m., following a flight from San Francisco that took it over the Mojave Desert.

Scientists win $3 mln for detecting Einstein's waves

By Joseph Ax NEW YORK (Reuters) - Researchers who helped detect gravitational waves for the first time, confirming part of Albert Einstein's theory in a landmark moment in scientific history, will share a $3 million Special Breakthrough Prize, according to the prize's selection committee. The Breakthrough Prizes for scientific achievements were created by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner along with several technology pioneers, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founder Sergey Brin. In February, a team from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced a pair of giant laser detectors had measured the tiny ripples in space and time first theorized by Einstein a century ago, capping a decades-long quest.

Scientists win $3 million for detecting Einstein's waves

Long-Lost Revolutionary War Shipwreck May Have Been Found

The wreck of a famous research vessel turned Revolutionary War troopship may soon be discovered. The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) will announce its progress in the hunt for a ship dubbed "Lord Sandwich" on Wednesday (May 4). This ship is better known by its previous name: the HMS Endeavour, the British Royal Navy vessel that James Cook took to explore Australia and New Zealand between 1768 and 1771.

Airing of Grievances: First-Class Cabins Raise 'Air Rage' Risks

You've seen the headlines about airline passengers losing their cool on flights, but is there a reason behind these mile-high rages? Rather, the presence of a first-class cabin — and whether all passengers need to walk through it when boarding, to get to their own seats — may be playing a role in these incidents of "air rage," according to the study, published today (May 2) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hangry No More: Dieting Actually Improves Mood

"We found that normal-weight and mildly overweight people who wish to lose weight need not worry about decreased quality of life," said Corby Martin, the director of the Ingestive Behavior Laboratory at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana and the lead author on the study. Researchers have hypothesized that calorie restriction "might negatively affect mood, stamina and libido, and increase irritability, particularly among normal-weight people," Martin told Live Science. The participants were divided into two groups: a calorie-restricted group, which included 145 people, and a control group, which included 75 people, according to the study.

Diving Robot 'Mermaid' Lends a Hand (or 2) to Ocean Exploration

In Mediterranean waters, off the coast of France, a diver recently visited the shipwreck La Lune — a vesssel in King Louis XIV's fleet — which lay untouched and unexplored on the ocean bottom since it sank in 1664.

Jet-Powered Hoverboard Sets New World Record

Franky Zapata flew a hoverboard 7,388 feet (2,252 meters) from a height of 164 feet (50 m), according to Guinness World Records. The daredevil set the new record on the Flyboard Air, a futuristic craft developed by his company, Zapata Racing. Previous world record holder Catalin Alexandru Duru piloted a hoverboard prototype of his own design that flew 905 feet, 2 inches (275.9 m).

Ancient American: Kennewick Man's Tribal Links Confirmed

The origins of a man who lived some 8,500 years ago, and whose skeleton was discovered in 1996 in Kennewick, Washington, have finally been pinned down. The ancient remains are most closely related to modern Native Americans, a new study led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers confirmed. Now that the skeleton's Native American link has been confirmed — a 2015 analysis of Kennewick Man found similar results — the re-burial of the remains must follow the guidelines of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the Army Corps said.

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