GoogleTrends

Sunday, December 8, 2013

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Ancient Estate and Garden Fountain Unearthed in Israel

The remains of a wealthy estate, with a mosaic fountain in its garden, dating to between the late 10th and early 11th centuries have been unearthed in Ramla in central Israel. "It seems that a private building belonging to a wealthy family was located there and that the fountain was used for ornamentation," Hagit Torgë, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in a statement. Fountains from the Fatimid period were mostly found around the center of the Old City of Ramla called White Mosque, Torgë added.

Scientists test ideas in bird botulism outbreaks

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — For more than a decade, people walking along Great Lakes beaches have come upon a heartrending sight: dozens, or even hundreds, of dead loons, gulls and other waterfowl — victims of food poisoning that paralyzed their muscles and eventually caused them to drown.

Is Dark Matter Made of Tiny Black Holes?

A planet-hunting NASA spacecraft has detected no sign of moon-size black holes yet in the Milky Way galaxy, limiting the chances that such objects could make up most of the "dark matter" that has mystified scientists for decades. It remains so mysterious that scientists are still uncertain as to whether dark matter is made of microscopic particles or far larger objects. The consensus right now is that dark matter consists of a new type of particle, one that interacts very weakly at best with all the known forces of the universe except gravity. As such, dark matter is invisible and mostly intangible, with its presence only detectable via the gravitational pull it exerts.

3 Words That Sell: Made in America

Researchers say that finding suggests that quality and safety may be the true motivating factors behind these purchase decisions. According to the BCG research, U.S. millennials are receptive to this type of marketing and are more likely than nonmillennials to purchase items associated with a particular cause, such as "Made in America."

Top-Secret US Spy Satellite Launches into Orbit (Photos)

A classified U.S. spy payload rocketed into orbit from California on an Atlas 5 launcher Thursday (Dec. 5), joining the nation's eyes and ears in the sky to supply intelligence to the government's national security agencies. The satellite is owned by the National Reconnaissance Office, but government officials do not disclose the identities of the NRO's spacecraft, only saying the payload will serve national security purposes. But independent satellite-watchers believe the spacecraft will join the NRO's fleet of spacecraft with radars to penetrate cloaks of clouds and darkness and reveal what adversaries are doing regardless of weather or time of day. The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 11:14:30 p.m. PST Thursday (0714:30 GMT;

Lemon Sharks Return to Their Birthplace to Have Babies

"We found that newborn sharks captured in the mid-1990s left the safety of the islands when they were between five and eight years old," biologist Kevin Feldheim, of The Field Museum in Chicago, explained in a statement. In 1995, the researchers captured, tagged and released more than 2,000 baby sharks in the lagoon in Bimini, a set of islands located 53 miles (81 kilometers) east of Miami. Samuel Gruber, president and director of the Bimini Biological Field Station Foundation, who started the project, explained that lagoon is "almost like a lake." Their slow growth rate is one of the reasons why overfishing can seriously damage shark populations.

Nobel winner: scientists get it wrong most of time

STOCKHOLM (AP) — One of this year's Nobel Prize laureates says learning how to handle failure is key to becoming a successful scientist.

Scientists to Congress: We Have the Technology to Find Alien Life

To find extraterrestrial life, be it microbes or intelligent life, scientists need telescopes capable of detecting Earth-like planets in Earth's neighborhood and ways to detect biological signatures of life or signs of alien technology. "This is the first time in human history we have the technological reach to find life on other planets," Sara Seager, a planetary scientist at MIT, said at a House Committee on Science, Space and Technology hearing today. "Astrobiology has become a crosscutting theme of all NASA space science endeavors," and continued funding is important, said Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D., Texas). The Kepler mission has identified more than 3,500 potential planets outside Earth's solar system, including 10 that are Earth-size and lie within their star's habitable zone.

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Delievered to you by Feedamail.
Unsubscribe

Friday, December 6, 2013

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Commercial Space Race Revolutionizing Business Off Planet Earth

LONDON — For decades, the space race was seen as being mostly about national pride. The first man in space, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, was proclaimed by the Kremlin as Citizen of the World and hailed as a sign of communist leadership. Watching NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon made Americans grin in triumph and forced Soviet leaders to grit their teeth. On Nov. 5, India's national space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization, launched a spacecraft dubbed Mangalyaan to Mars.

Fearful Experiences Passed On In Mouse Families

Now, new research in mice reveals how experience can be passed down through generations due to changes in DNA. Scientists trained mice to associate the scent of cherry blossoms with the fear of receiving an electric shock, and found that the mice's pups and grandpups were more sensitive to the scent, even though they didn't receive the shock training. The mice appear to have inherited the fear knowledge through modifications to their genetic code.

3D Virtual Birth Simulator Could Help Doctors Prepare for Delivery

It seems there's almost nothing computers can't simulate these days: Now, a new computer program simulates human birth using 3D virtual reality. It could help doctors and midwives prepare for unusual or dangerous births, according to the researchers in England who developed it. The simulator shows you what's happening inside," said Rudy Lapeer, a computer scientist at the University of East Anglia, leader of the research that was presented Nov. 22 at a conference on E-Health and Bioengineering in Romania. Hospitals have used models to simulate the birthing process since the 1800s, Lapeer told LiveScience.

Great Pyramids of the Gophers: Mima Mound Mystery Solved

A new twist on an old mystery may finally settle the debate over the origin of Mima mounds, which bulge out of the ground like enormous, grass-covered bubble wrap. Mima mounds (sounds like dime-a) were named in 1841, when a vast pimply prairie (the Mima Prairie) was discovered in western Washington during the United States Exploring Expedition. Early explorers thought Mima mounds were Native American burial sites, but no skeletons or grave relics were inside. Because the rich prairie soil at many Mima mound sites turns sodden when it rains, scientists often blamed burrowing pocket gophers, the same rodents that pockmark golf courses and lawns — perhaps, scientists surmised, the gophers built up to escape drowning.

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Delievered to you by Feedamail.
Unsubscribe

Thursday, December 5, 2013

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

(Sponsor this newsletter)

New Test May Help Predict Ovarian Cancer Survival

A sensitive new DNA test can predict how long ovarian cancer patients will survive, and guide personalized treatment decisions, according to new research. The technology, called QuanTILfy, counts the number of cells called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in a cancer patient's tumor biopsy. This test is the first that can precisely count the number of immune cells present in a tumor sample. "We are providing a new tool," said Jason H. Bielas, a cancer geneticist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and lead researcher of the study.

Jamaica scientist launches medical marijuana firm

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — A prominent Jamaican scientist and entrepreneur is launching a company that aims to capitalize on the growing international market for medical marijuana.

'Noisy' Icebergs Could Mask Whale Calls

SAN FRANCISCO — The sound of icebergs breaking apart in the ocean could make the seas a noisier place. "Recent reports have said that especially near port of calls in industrial countries, noise levels rose about 10 decibels in the last 30 to 40 years," said study co-author Haru Matsumoto, an acoustic engineer at Oregon State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Matsumoto and his colleagues were tracking the sounds from hydrophones, or underwater microphones, located in the Pacific a few hundred miles from Panama, when they noticed an uptick in noise in 2008. It turned out that a massive iceberg called C19 and about the size of Rhode Island, had calved into the ocean and disintegrated that year, Matsumoto said.

Triplet Births Due to Fertility Treatments Are Declining

More than one-third of U.S. twins, and more than three-quarters of triplets and other multiple births, are now born as a result of fertility treatments, according to estimates from a new study. In 2011, 36 percent of twin births and 77 percent of triplet and higher-order births (quadruplets, etc.) were aided by fertility treatments, which include both in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other treatments, such as the use of drugs to stimulate the ovaries and induce ovulation, the study found. After that, the proportion of triplet and higher-order births attributable to IVF declined by 33 percent (from 48 percent in 1998 to 32 percent in 2011). However, there's still a lot of work to be done to reduce the U.S. rate of multiple births, said study researcher Dr. Eli Y. Adashi, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Brown University.

Climate Scientist: 2 Degrees of Warming Too Much

NEW YORK — Famed climate scientist and activist James Hansen has said it before, and he'll say it again: Two degrees of warming is too much. International climate negotiators agreed in the Copenhagen Accord, a global agreement on climate change that took place at the 2009 United Nations' Climate Change Conference, that warming this century shouldn't increase by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. But in a new paper published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, Hansen and a cadre of co-authors from a wide array of disciplines argue that even 2 degrees is too much, and would "subject young people, future generations and nature to irreparable harm," Hansen wrote in an accompanying essay distributed to reporters. The new study is a departure from the typical climate science paper, both for the wide variety of fields represented in the list of co-authors, which includes economist Jeffrey Sachs, as well as for the policy implications it raises, something climate scientists tend to shy away from.

How to See Venus and Moon in Daytime Sky Thursday

Venus and the moon get together for yet another celestial dalliance on Thursday (Dec. 5), and you should be able to see the pair in a blue daytime sky. Venus is 38.5 million miles (61.9 million kilometers) from Earth at the moment, while the moon is nearly 173 times closer at 222,800 miles (358,700 km) away.

Sunken Japanese WWII Submarine Discovered Off Hawaiian Coast

A World War II-era Japanese submarine that had been captured and intentionally sunk by U.S. forces was discovered earlier this year in its watery tomb. Researchers at the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL), headquartered at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu, located the missing I-400 submarine off Oahu's southwest coast, sitting more than 2,300 feet (700 meters) below sea level. The I-400 was one of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Sen Toku-class submarines, which were the largest submarines ever built before the age of nuclear-powered subs. These massive vessels were longer than a football field, and were used as submarine aircraft carriers.

Undersea Miracle: How Man in Sunken Ship Survived 3 Days

Harrison Okene, the ship's cook, was in the bathroom when the boat turned over and began to sink. In the predawn darkness, Okene was tossed from the bathroom wearing only his boxer shorts. Okene was luckier than his crewmates, however. Almost naked, with no food or fresh water, in a cold, wet room with a dwindling supply of oxygen, Okene's odds of survival seemed to be near-zero.

Mummy Mystery: Multiple Tombs Hidden in Egypt's Valley of Kings

Multiple tombs lay hidden in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, where royalty were buried more than 3,000 years ago, awaiting discovery, say researchers working on the most extensive exploration of the area in nearly a century. Egyptian archaeologists excavated the valley, where royalty were buried during the New Kingdom (1550–1070 B.C.), between 2007 and 2010 and worked with the Glen Dash Foundation for Archaeological Research to conduct ground- penetrating radar studies. The team has already made a number of discoveries in the valley, including a flood control system that the ancient Egyptians created but, mysteriously, failed to maintain. The team collected a huge amount of data that will take a long time to analyze properly, wrote Afifi Ghonim, who was the field director of the project, in an email to LiveScience.

Tidy Cavemen: Neanderthals Organized Their Shelters

New research suggests that Neanderthals kept a tidy home. During excavations at a cave in Italy where a group of our closest known extinct relatives once lived, scientists say they found a strategically placed hearth and separate spaces for butchering and tool-making. In recent years, researchers have discovered that Neanderthals made tools, buried their dead, used fire and maybe even adorned themselves with feathers, bucking our ancient cousins' reputation as stocky brutes. "There has been this idea that Neanderthals did not have an organized use of space, something that has always been attributed to humans," study researcher Julien Riel-Salvatore, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver, said in a statement.

Sharks Do Get Cancer: Tumor Found in Great White

Scientists have known for more than 150 years that sharks get cancer. That misconception is promoted in part by those who sell shark cartilage, who claim that the substance will help cure cancer, said David Shiffman, a shark researcher and doctoral student at the University of Miami. But no studies have shown that shark cartilage is an effective treatment, and the demand for the material has helped decimate shark populations, researchers say: Humans kill about 100 million sharks per year, according to a March 2013 study (although many factors contribute to the killing of sharks, including demand for shark-fin soup). "This was a very unusual sight as we have never before seen a [great] white shark with tumors," said Rachel Robbins, a study co-author and shark biologist at the Fox Shark Research Foundation, near Adelaide, in southern Australia.

Valley Girl Talk Is, Like, Everywhere in Southern California

SAN FRANCISCO — Valley girl talk, a style of talking marked by a rise in pitch at the end of sentences, is not just for rich girls from Encino any more. The uptalk is, like, totally ubiquitous amongst native Southern Californians of all demographics, including males, new research shows. Understanding that prevalence could help prevent miscommunications or negative impressions by Midwesterners and others unfamiliar with the SoCal language, said study co-author Amanda Ritchart, a linguistics doctoral candidate at the University of California San Diego. In Southern California, "most people talk like this, including males and people from all different ethnic groups," said Ritchart, who will present the findings today (Dec. 5) here at the 166th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America.

Swiss expert contests French finding that Arafat not poisoned

By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - A Swiss scientist who examined samples from the body of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said French experts had made weak arguments in concluding that he could not have died of poisoning in 2004. French forensic examiners commissioned by magistrates investigating Arafat's death in a Paris hospital assessed on Tuesday that he had not been killed with radioactive polonium found in abnormally high levels in his body and clothing. The Swiss approach resembled that of the French inquiry but dug deeper into the mystery, said Francois Bochud, director of the institute of radiation physics at University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) who helped exhume Arafat's remains a year ago. Arafat, who signed the 1993 Oslo interim peace accords with Israel but then led an uprising after subsequent talks broke down in 2000, died aged 75 in November 2004.

Teens' Bonds with Parents Affect Their Sleep

During the study, teens' sleep decreased from 9.2 hour per night (on school nights) at age 12, to 7.8 hours per night at age 15. Teens' social ties were much stronger predictors of changes in their sleep patterns than their stages of puberty, the researchers said. The findings underscore the notion that, with regard to sleep habits, "teens' lives, in their totality, matters…not just the phase of puberty," they're going through, said study researcher David Maume, a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati. Teens were more likely to get adequate sleep if their parents kept close tabs on their child's activities.

US Pregnancy Rate Reaches 12-Year Low

The U.S. pregnancy rate has fallen almost continuously over the last decade, and reached a 12-year low in 2009, according to a new government report. Researchers analyzed information on U.S. pregnancy rates for women ages 15 to 44 over the last two decades, with 2009 being the most recent year with data available. During that period, the U.S. pregnancy rate fell 12 percent, from 115.8 pregnancies per 1,000 women in 1990, to 102.1 pregnancies per 1,000 women in 2009. The total number of pregnancies in 2009 was about 6.3 million, which resulted in 4.1 million live births, 1.1 million induced abortions and 1.1 million pregnancy losses, according to the report.

Measles Cases Spiked in 2013, CDC Reports

Nearly 200 cases of measles have been reported in the United States so far this year, making 2013 one of the worst for measles outbreaks in the last decade, according to new numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cases usually occur when a person is infected with measles in another country, and brings the virus back to the United States. Nearly all measles cases in 2013 could be traced back to an infection that occurred abroad, the CDC said. The increase in cases in 2013 serves as a reminder that measles cases anywhere in the world have the potential to cause an outbreak in the United States, said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC.

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Delievered to you by Feedamail.
Unsubscribe