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Thursday, July 7, 2016

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White House proposes measures to speed genomic test development

By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House announced on Wednesday measures aimed at advancing President Barack Obama's precision medicine initiative, including plans to speed the development of tests used to identify genetic mutations and guide medical treatment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it planned to issue a proposal on Wednesday to create performance standards to guide development of next generation sequencing (NGS) tests.

Multinational crew blasts off for space station

A three-member multinational crew blasted off aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan on Thursday for a two-day trip to the International Space Station, a NASA TV broadcast showed. NASA astronaut Kathleen "Kate" Rubins, Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 0136 GMT on Thursday (9:36p.m. EDT Wednesday) and reached orbit nine minutes later. The crew's Russian Soyuz capsule is scheduled to arrive at the station, which orbits about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, at 0412 GMT Saturday (12:12 a.m. EDT) to begin a four-month mission.

Love in the Time of Tarantulas? Newfound Spider Named for Márquez

A fearsome tarantula covered in bizarre "attack" hairs has been discovered in a mountain range in Colombia. The spider's "attack" hairs, or urticating hairs, look different from all other known tarantula hairs, the researchers found. Most tarantulas "kick" their urticating hairs at enemies, but the newfound spider is the first known species in its subfamily to use its hairs in direct contact attacks, they said.

Philly's Poo: Old Toilets Reveal Early America's Secret History

A treasure trove of artifacts tossed down the loo is revealing the secret life of pre-Revolutionary America. The nearly 300-year-old privies, which were uncovered in the heart of Philadelphia, have yielded more than 82,000 artifacts that span nearly three centuries, from the city's pre-Revolutionary roots to the modern day. Among the historic treasures were a ceramic punchbowl that provides a snapshot of Revolutionary America, shattered glasses from a back-alley tavern and the foundation of the city's first skyscraper, which was erected in 1850.

Armor Up! Water Fleas Grow Helmets and Spines for Battle

Water fleas prepare for battle by growing armor that's customized to specific enemies, new research finds. Now, researcher Linda Weiss of Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany and her colleagues have found the neurotransmitters that help water fleas customize their bodies in response to the chemical cues in their watery environments. Daphnia is a genus comprising many species of the tiny crustaceans known as water fleas.

'I Think I Can:' How Talking to Yourself Brings Self-Improvement

Twelve of the groups watched videos that trained them in a different motivational technique such as self-talk, while one group, which served as a control, only watched a basic instructional video that did not involve any such techniques. The researchers then asked the participants to play an online game that involved finding numbers on a grid and clicking on them in sequence, from 1 to 36, as quickly as possible.

Seeing Green: Pot Changes Brain's Response to Money

Smoking marijuana may change the way people's brains respond to certain rewards, such as the prospect of winning some money, according to a new study. The researchers found that the brains of people who smoked marijuana did not respond to the idea of winning the money as strongly as did the brains of people who did not use the drug. The results suggest that for people who smoke pot, "there is not as much pleasure that is being received from something that would naturally give somebody pleasure," study author Mary Heitzeg, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical School, told Live Science.

It May Smell Nice, But Is Your Sunscreen Actually Protecting You?

The most popular sunscreens may not always be the most effective, a new study finds. Nearly half of the sunscreens that researchers looked at in the study didn't meet all of the guidelines recommended by the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD). But these criteria don't appear to play a major role in people's choices when they buy sunscreen, according to the study, led by Dr. Steve Xu, a dermatology resident at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

12,000-Year-Old Shaman's Elaborate Funeral Had 6 Stages

A diminutive woman buried in a cave in Israel 12,000 years ago was likely a person of importance and was interred with great ceremony, including a feast of 86 tortoises, archaeological evidence suggests. Study lead author Leore Grosman, a professor at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discovered the grave in 2005, in a cave called Hilazon Tachtit, located in western Galilee in northern Israel. The skeleton of a woman about 4 feet 9 inches (1.5 meters) tall and about 45 years old had been carefully placed in a grave pit layered with sediment, seashells, tortoise shells, chalk and bony horn cores from gazelles.

New High-Speed Camera Is So Fast It Can See Neurons Firing

This upgrade could help researchers learn more about how the brain works and how to improve combustion-engine fuel efficiency, the scientists said. The scientists have now improved on this technique, called compressed ultrafast photography, boosting its resolution "by about 2.4 times," said study senior author Lihong Wang, an applied physicist at Washington University in St. Louis. In their latest work, the researchers started with a streak camera — an extremely fast type of camera that measures how the intensity of a pulse of light varies over time.

Prehistoric Tattoos Were Made with Volcanic Glass Tools

Volcanic glass tools that are at least 3,000 years old were used for tattooing in the South Pacific in ancient times, a new study finds. Torrence and her colleagues Nina Kononenko, of the Australian Museum, and Peter Sheppard, of the University of Auckland in New Zealand, detailed their findings in the August issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

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Wednesday, July 6, 2016

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'Fearsome Raisin' Ant Sports Striking Fingerprint Pattern

Myrmecina magnificens, named for its beauty, lives in leaf litter on the forest floor and probably preys on tiny mites, said discoverer Mark Wong, an ecologist and independent researcher in Singapore. "Some people say it looks a little bit like a fearsome raisin," Wong told Live Science.

Dwarf Dinosaur Sported Lumpy Tumor on Its Face

During its lifetime about 69 million years ago, a duck-billed dinosaur dwarf walked around with a tumor on its lower jaw, though the unusual growth likely didn't cause any pain, a new study finds. "This discovery is the first ever described in the fossil record and the first to be thoroughly documented in a dwarf dinosaur," one of the study's co-authors, Kate Acheson, a doctoral student of geology at the University of Southampton in England, said in a statement. Researchers found the fossils in western Romania in the "Valley of the Dinosaurs," which is part of a World Heritage site honored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Secret World of Primeval Rivers Lies Beneath Greenland Glacier

A network of ancient rivers lies frozen in time beneath one of Greenland's largest glaciers, new research reveals. The subglacial river network, which threads through much of Greenland's landmass and looks, from above, like the tiny nerve fibers radiating from a brain cell, may have influenced the fast-moving Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier over the past few million years. "The channels seem to be instrumental in controlling the location and form of the Jakobshavn ice stream — and seem to show a clear influence on the onset of fast flow in this region," study co-author Michael Cooper, a doctoral candidate in geography at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, told Live Science.

Physics prepares to feast on collider data, seeking dark universe

By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - Scientists at Europe's physics research centre CERN are preparing to unwrap the biggest trove of data yet from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), three years after they confirmed the existence of the elusive Higgs boson. "In the life of accelerator physics there are few moments like the one we are living through," said Tiziano Camporesi, leader of the CMS experiment at CERN. "This is the time when the probability of finding something new is highest." The Higgs boson, whose discovery secured the Nobel prize for physics in 2013, answered fundamental questions about how elementary matter attained mass.

DARPA's Hacking Contest Will Pit Machines Against Each Other

The U.S. Department of Defense is hosting a huge hacking competition next month to highlight vulnerabilities in the world's growing network of "smart" devices — the so-called internet of things. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the branch of the Department of Defense responsible for developing new technologies for the military, will hold its Cyber Grand Challenge Aug. 4 in Las Vegas. More importantly, critical connected infrastructure such as traffic lights, utility systems and power grids could be susceptible to cyberattacks, according to DARPA.

Massive 'Lava Lamp' Blobs Deep Inside Earth Have Scientists Puzzled

"To me, the big unanswered question is, what is it, and how did it form?" said the paper's lead author Edward Garnero, a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. The blobs are characterized by slower wave speeds, which suggests they are a different temperature from the rest of the Earth's mantle, the researchers said. Because they're big and characterized by the slower wave speeds, the blobs have been called large low velocity provinces (LLVPs).

Man Paralyzed After Mosquito Bite: How Often Does West Nile Strike the Nerves?

A man in Arizona who recently became infected with the West Nile virus is now paralyzed from the waist down, CBS Los Angeles reported. Infections with the mosquito-borne West Nile virus have been known to lead to neurological problems, including paralysis, though these results are rare. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), less than 1 percent of people who are infected with West Nile develop neurological symptoms.

Plunging Neckline May Help Women Land More Job Interviews

Women who show more skin in a job application photo may have a much better shot of landing an interview, a new study suggests. Researchers in France found that women who submitted a color picture of themselves wearing a low-cut dress were more likely to be called in for a job interview for sales and accounting positions than women whose photos showed them wearing a dress with a less revealing, round neckline, according to the study. The analysis revealed that the female candidates who showed more cleavage were five times more likely to be invited to an interview for a sales position, and four times more likely to land an interview for an accounting position, than women who were more conservatively dressed, said study researcher Sevag Kertechian, a doctoral candidate in human resources management at Paris-Sorbonne University in France.

US Olympic Team Will Be Studied for Zika

When the U.S. Olympic team heads to Brazil in the coming weeks for the start of the Summer Games, some athletes will be studied to see if they become infected with the Zika virus. The government-funded study will involve at least 1,000 members of the U.S. Olympic team, including athletes, coaches and staff, according to the National Institutes of Health, which announced plans for the study today (July 5). Those who sign up for the study will undergo periodic tests for Zika, the virus that's currently causing an outbreak in Brazil and other countries in the Americas.

California city's curb fix disappoints earthquake scientists

HAYWARD, Calif. (AP) — A faulty curb that perfectly illustrated the seismic forces at work underneath a San Francisco Bay Area neighborhood has been fixed, stunning scientists, who say a curbside laboratory for studying earthquakes was destroyed.

Weight check for first penguin born through artificial insemination

OSAKA, Japan - The world's first penguin conceived through artificial insemination tipped the scales at a healthy 1,210 grams (2.6 lbs) on Wednesday in Japan, where scientists have been working for six years to develop technology to preserve the species. The southern rockhopper penguin was born on June 6, according to the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan. The aquarium teamed up with Hiroshi Kusunoki, of Kobe University Graduate School of Agricultural Science, for the project and the Tokyo Sea Life Park, which provided a healthy sperm sample from a male penguin. ...

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Tuesday, July 5, 2016

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NASA's Juno spacecraft loops into orbit around Jupiter

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA'S Juno spacecraft capped a five-year journey to Jupiter on Monday with a do-or-die engine burn that looped it into orbit to probe the origins of the biggest planet in the solar system and how it impacted the rise of life on Earth, the U.S. space agency said. Juno fired its main engine for 35 minutes beginning at 11:18 a.m. EDT/0318 Tuesday GMT, slowing the spacecraft so it could be captured by the planet's gravity. Once in position to begin its 20-month science mission, Juno will fly in egg-shaped orbits, each one lasting 14 days, to learn if Jupiter has a dense core beneath its clouds and map its massive magnetic field. The probe also will hunt for water in Jupiter's thick atmosphere, a key yardstick for figuring out how far away from the sun the gas giant formed.

Freeloading Butterflies Get Away with Theft

A bizarre Amazonian butterfly is the ultimate freeloader, researchers say. The butterfly species steals and eats gooey bamboo secretions from its ant neighbors, in a relationship known as kleptoparasitism, new research has found. Pomerantz and his colleagues have now captured images of the odd behavior — the first time that kleptoparasitism has been documented between adult butterflies and ants.

Tallest Mountain in US Arctic Crowned

Though Denali is the uncontested highest peak in North America — with a summit elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190 meters) — there has been a more than 50-year debate over which U.S. mountain can be crowned the tallest beyond the Arctic Circle. U.S. Geological Survey topographic maps from the 1950s show either Mount Chamberlin or Mount Isto as the highest mountain in the eastern Alaska Arctic region. At 8,975.1 feet (2,735.6 m), Mount Isto is the tallest peak in the U.S. Arctic, and Mount Chamberlin (at 8,898.6 feet, or 2712.3 m) is only the third highest.

Revenge Is Bittersweet, Research Finds

Revenge is a dish best served cold. The culture is swimming with depictions of revenge: Sometimes it's deeply satisfying, sometimes it injures the avenger, and sometimes it's a little bit of both. "We show that people express both positive and negative feelings about revenge, such that revenge isn't bitter, nor sweet, but both," Fade Eadeh, a doctoral candidate in psychological and brain sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, said in a statement.

Tomb with a View: Ancient Burial Sites Served as 'Telescopes'

And the scientists are looking especially closely at passage graves, a type of tomb with a large chamber accessed through a long and narrow entry tunnel. This type of structure could have greatly enhanced views of faint stars as they rose on the dawn horizon. The findings were presented June 29 at the Royal Astronomical Society's (RAS) National Astronomy Meeting 2016 in Nottingham, in the United Kingdom.

Female Komodo Dragon Saved After Her Eggs Burst

A complex surgery has saved the life of a captive Komodo dragon at the Denver Zoo. Anika, a 6-year-old female Komodo dragon, developed dystocia, a condition in which reptiles are unable to deposit their eggs. Zoo staff first noticed that Anika's abdomen was swollen and that she'd lost weight, even though her appetite (and eating) had increased dramatically.

Your Brainwaves May Fall into a 'Texting Rhythm'

These days, it seems like smartphones are an integral part of people's daily lives — and a new study suggests that texting on these devices may actually change certain processes in the brain. They were surprised that the rhythm could be reproduced in different patients in the study, said Dr. William Tatum, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Jacksonville, Florida, and the lead author of the study. The discovery of new brain-wave patterns is rare — it was more common in the years following the late 1920s, when the electroencephalogram (EEG) device, which shows brain activity, was invented, he said.

Science Finds a Way to Overcome Life's Regrets

The people in the study who practiced self-compassion, or being kind to oneself, were more likely to overcome regrets than the people who did not do so, according to the study, published in February in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Although regrets are often painful, previous studies have suggested that some people can overcome them and feel stronger afterward, said Jia Wei Zhang, a graduate student in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. The researchers wanted to better understand why some people report feeling improvement from regrets but others don't, Zhang said.

Satellite Spies International Space Station Orbiting Earth

A satellite captured a bird?s-eye view of the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting Earth, revealing spectacular images just released by NASA. With the Space Station orbiting at only 250 miles (400 km) above the surface, the Landsat 8's Operational Land Imager (OLI) gets a unique view of the ISS when the two orbits align. On June 19, 2016, the Landsat 8's OLI captured images of the ISS over the state of Odisha in eastern India.

Court rules against White House science office in email case

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court says work-related emails on a private account used by the White House's top science adviser are subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

New Robo-Salamander Can Really Move

With the help of X-ray videos, scientists have developed a new robot that mimics the way salamanders walk and swim. In general, scientists investigate animal locomotion for insights that could, among other things, help people recover from devastating losses of mobility, said study senior author Auke Ijspeert, a bioroboticist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Increasingly, scientists are creating robot copies of animals to perform such investigations of animal locomotion.

Physics prepares to feast on collider data, seeking dark universe

By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - Scientists at Europe's physics research center CERN are preparing to unwrap the biggest trove of data yet from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), three years after they confirmed the existence of the elusive Higgs boson. "In the life of accelerator physics there are few moments like the one we are living through," said Tiziano Camporesi, leader of the CMS experiment at CERN. "This is the time when the probability of finding something new is highest." The Higgs boson, whose discovery secured the Nobel prize for physics in 2013, answered fundamental questions about how elementary matter attained mass.

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