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	(Sponsor this newsletter) Deadly Degrees: Why Heat Waves Kill So Quickly An intense heat wave that sent temperatures in Phoenix to 118 degrees Fahrenheit (47.7 degrees Celsius) this weekend has killed four people — and the heat could be worse today. Those killed so far were all hiking or biking outdoors, but heat waves can kill close to home, too. In 2003, during a major European heat wave, 14,802 people died of hyperthermia in France alone. Read More » Blame the Parents? Child Tragedies Reveal Empathy Decline A similar pattern occurred in late May after a preschooler slipped away from his mother and fell into a gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. Melissa Fenton, a writer for the parenting site Scary Mommy, wrote a plea for compassion on Facebook, arguing that in the past, child-in-peril stories engendered support, not judgment. Researchers reporting in 2013 in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience examined the brains of psychopaths (who have stunted empathy for others) and found multiple brain regions involved, including the anterior insula, the anterior cingulate cortex, the supplementary motor area, the inferior frontal gyrus, the somatosensory cortex and the right amygdala. Read More » Great Pyramid of Giza Is Slightly Lopsided The Great Pyramid of Giza may be a Wonder of the Ancient World, but it's not perfect: Its base is a little lopsided because its builders made a teensy mistake when constructing it, new research reveals. The west side of the pyramid is slightly longer than the east side, scientists have found. Although the difference is very slight, it's enough that a modern-day research team, led by engineer Glen Dash and Egyptologist Mark Lehner, was able to detect the small flaw in a new measuring project. Read More » British astronaut Tim Peake would return to space station 'in a heartbeat' Britain's first official astronaut said on Tuesday he would join another trip to the International Space Station "in a heartbeat" and would love to explore the moon. Tim Peake was one of three astronauts to return to earth on Saturday after spending half a year on the space station. It was "extremely important" for Britain to be involved in the advancement of human space flight, Peake, said on Tuesday. Read More » Tour Secret WWII Lab with Manhattan Project App The efforts during World War II to develop an atomic bomb were once shrouded in secrecy, but today, the story of the so-called Manhattan Project isn't just public — you can now visit the project on your smartphone. A new app called "Los Alamos: Secret City of the Manhattan Project" takes users back to New Mexico in the 1940s, to the facilities where scientists, government administrators and the U.S. military convened to create the most devastating weapons known to humankind. "The new app provides a virtual tour of a Manhattan Project property that no longer exists," Jennifer Payne, leader of the Resource Management Team at Los Alamos' Environmental Stewardship Group, said in a statement. Read More » Brain Tumor Risk Linked with Higher Education, Study Finds People with higher levels of education may be more likely to develop certain types of brain tumors, a new study from Sweden suggests. Researchers found that women who completed at least three years of university courses were 23 percent more likely to develop a type of cancerous brain tumor called glioma, compared with women who only completed up to nine years of mandatory education and did not go to a university. Read More » Centuries-old African soil technique could combat climate change - scientists By Kieran Guilbert DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A farming technique practised for centuries in West Africa, which transforms nutrient-poor rainforest soil into fertile farmland, could combat climate change and revolutionise farming across the continent, researchers said on Tuesday. Adding kitchen waste and charcoal to tropical soil can turn it into fertile, black soil which traps carbon and reduces emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, according to a study carried out by the University of Sussex in England. The soils produced by the 700-year-old practice, known as "African dark earths", contain up to 300 percent more organic carbon than other soils, and are capable of supporting far more intensive farming, said the anthropologist behind the study. Read More » Europe's robots to become 'electronic persons' under draft plan By Georgina Prodhan MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - Europe's growing army of robot workers could be classed as "electronic persons" and their owners liable to paying social security for them if the European Union adopts a draft plan to address the realities of a new industrial revolution. The motion faces an uphill battle to win backing from the various political blocks in European Parliament. Read More » Centuries-old African soil technique could combat climate change - scientists By Kieran Guilbert DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A farming technique practised for centuries in West Africa, which transforms nutrient-poor rainforest soil into fertile farmland, could combat climate change and revolutionise farming across the continent, researchers said on Tuesday. Adding kitchen waste and charcoal to tropical soil can turn it into fertile, black soil which traps carbon and reduces emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, according to a study carried out by the University of Sussex in England. The soils produced by the 700-year-old practice, known as "African dark earths", contain up to 300 percent more organic carbon than other soils, and are capable of supporting far more intensive farming, said the anthropologist behind the study. Read More »
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FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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	(Sponsor this newsletter) Gospel of Jesus's Wife Likely a Fake, Bizarre Backstory Suggests A papyrus holding text that suggests Jesus Christ was married and whose authenticity has been a matter of intense debate since it was unveiled in 2012 is almost certainly a fake. Karen King, the Harvard professor who discovered the Gospel of Jesus's Wife and has defended its authenticity, has now conceded that the papyrus is likely a forgery and that its owner lied to her about the provenance and his own background. The concession comes after Walter Fritz, a resident of North Port, Florida, revealed that he is the owner of the papyrus that claims Jesus had a wife. Read More » Paul Allen's space company nears debut of world's biggest plane By Irene Klotz MOJAVE, Calif. (Reuters) - A space launch company bankrolled by Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen intends to compete with space entrepreneurs and industry stalwarts by launching satellites into orbit from the world's biggest airplane. Stratolaunch Systems, a unit of Allen's privately owned Vulcan Aerospace, last week gave a small group of reporters a first look at the nearly finished aircraft. With a wingspan of 385 feet (117 m), the six-engine plane will be larger than Howard Hughes' 1947 H-4 Hercules, known as the "Spruce Goose," and the Antonov An-225, a Soviet-era cargo plane originally built to transport the Buran space shuttle that is currently the world's largest aircraft. Read More » Scientists battle to save world's coral reefs HONOLULU (AP) — After the most powerful El Nino on record heated the world's oceans to never-before-seen levels, huge swaths of once vibrant coral reefs that were teeming with life are now stark white ghost towns disintegrating into the sea. Read More » Solar plane takes on Atlantic as part of round-the-world bid The spindly, single-seat Solar Impulse 2 left John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 2:30 a.m. EDT on a trip expected to take up to 90 hours, the 15th leg of its round-the-world journey. Swiss aviators Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg have been taking turns piloting the plane, which has more than 17,000 solar cells built into wings whose span exceeds that of a Boeing 747, with Piccard at the controls for the transatlantic flight. Solar Impulse 2 is due to land sometime on Thursday in Spain or France, with the precise location to be determined later depending on weather conditions, said Elizabeth Banta, a spokeswoman for the project team. Read More » Myth Busted: Taking Photos Doesn't Ruin Your Experiences The next time your friends roll their eyes when you're snapping a selfie or taking a photo of your dessert, tell them that according to new research, photographing everyday things can actually make people happier. For example, when people in the study took a virtual safari and watched a pride of lions attack a water buffalo, the people who took photos of the bloody event reported a lower enjoyment of the activity than those who didn't take photos, the researchers said. Read More » Hang Glider Aims to Break Long-Distance Flight Record A daring hang glider known for his extreme stunts and record-setting flights will soon attempt to set another record for the longest open-distance flight. On or soon after Monday (June 20), Jonny Durand will attempt to glide from Zapata, in southern Texas, to Lorenzo, in northern Texas, a distance of about 475 miles (764 kilometers). Aiding him on his journey — on (or around) the summer solstice, the longest day of the year — are what may be the most ideal atmospheric conditions for long-distance hang-gliding on Earth. Read More » 'Cosmic Watch' App Lets You Track Stars and Planets in Real Time The app, named the Cosmic Watch, can tell you what the solar system was like when you were born, or set the scene for the next solar eclipse. The app provides a vivid view of the cosmos to show how time reflects our position in the solar system, said Markus Humbel, co-founder of the app. Along with his colleagues, he obtained data on planet movements from NASA and other organizations with open-source data, and incorporated information on gravity, planet size and planets' orbital paths into the Cosmic Watch. Read More » When Lemurs Sing, Young Males Follow a Different Beat Researchers have found that indris, a type of lemur native to Madagascar, are not only accomplished singers but also use rhythmic techniques when singing together to coordinate vocal performances and define their roles in the troop. Leaping Lemurs! Amazing Primates Roam North Carolina Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. Read More » ISIS Plays 'Evolutionary Game' to Avoid Online Shutdown "We were interested in how support for particular extreme ideas or extreme organizations develops online, and then if we could understand that, what the implications would be for then what happens in the real world," study researcher and physicist Neil Johnson of the University of Miami told Live Science. In the new research, published today (June 16) in the journal Science, Johnson and his colleagues identified and studied 196 pro-ISIS aggregates, ad hoc online groups formed via linkage to a social media page. The researchers found that though the pro-ISIS groups consisted of members who have likely never met and have no direct way of contacting one another, the aggregates were able to mutate and reincarnate to avoid detection. Read More » Sex with 2 Partners Before Marriage Raises Divorce Risk "In short: If you're going to have comparisons to your husband, it's best to have more than one," study author Nicholas Wolfinger, a professor in the University of Utah Department of Family and Consumer Studies and an adjunct professor in the university's Department of Sociology, said in a statement. To see if the changing attitudes toward premarital sex affected the risk of divorce, Wolfinger looked at data from three waves of the National Survey of Family Growth, a survey on marriage and sexual behavior. The findings confirmed what many would believe by simply looking around: Women are much more likely to have premarital sex today than 50 years ago. Read More » Frog Embryos Speed-Hatch to Escape Danger A developing frog embryo in its jelly-like egg mass can be quite the escape artist: When predators come calling, the red-eyed tree frog embryo can detect the threat and drop out of its egg to safety in a matter of seconds, even though it normally wouldn't be ready to hatch for several more days. Karen Warkentin, study co-author and a biology professor at Boston University, reported the unusual behavior in red-eyed tree frog embryos in an earlier study published in 2005 in the journal Animal Behavior. Warkentin recorded the embryos' responses to different types of vibrations. Read More »
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FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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	(Sponsor this newsletter) Capsule carrying space station crew lands in Kazakhstan A Soyuz capsule carrying a Russian, an American and a Briton from the International Space Station made a safe parachute landing on the steppe near the Kazakh city of Zhezkazgan on Saturday. The three-man crew which includes Tim Peake, the first astronaut representing the British government, departed the station about three hours earlier after spending half a year in Earth's orbit. Alongside Peake, who smiled as he was being examined by flight surgeons, were commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA astronaut Tim Kopra. Read More »
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	(Sponsor this newsletter) The Secret Behind Birds' Brainy Feats Revealed The next time someone calls you a "bird brain," you may want to plant a big, fat kiss on their overgrown primate noggin. Inch for inch, birds cram more neurons into their pea-size brains than primates do, new research suggests. "For a long time, having a 'bird brain' was considered to be a bad thing: Now, it turns out that it should be a compliment," Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, said in a statement. Read More » Search for Another King Under a Parking Lot Begins Nearly four years after the body of King Richard III was discovered under a parking lot, a new search is on for an English monarch under pavement. On Friday (June 10), archaeologists began a survey of the grounds of the long-closed Reading Abbey, the final resting place of King Henry I, who ruled England from 1100 to 1135. In order to image the subsurface, they relied on ground-penetrating radar (GPR), which uses reflected radar waves to reveal buried structures. Read More » Centuries-Old Shipwreck Recreated with 3D Printing Now, archaeologists in the United Kingdom are using 3D printing to bring two historical shipwrecks to life for history enthusiasts and experts alike. Using data from photogrammetry (measuring the distance between objects from photographs) and sonar imaging, the researchers have produced scale models of a 17th-century shipwreck near Drumbeg, in Scotland, and the remains of the HMHS Anglia, a steamship that was used as a floating hospital during World War I. "It was a proof of concept for us, trying to establish what could be done using sound and light, but there are so many different applications you could use this for," said maritime archaeologist John McCarthy, a project manager at Wessex Archaeology who carried out dives at the Scottish site and was in charge of producing the 3D models. Read More »
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