GoogleTrends

Thursday, December 12, 2013

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Monitor Lizards' Breathing May Have Evolved Before Dinosaurs

Monitor lizards breathe by taking in air that flows through their lungs in a one-way loop — a pattern of breathing that may have originated 270 million years ago in the ancestral group that gave rise to dinosaurs, and eventually alligators and birds, a new study finds. Researchers at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, and Harvard University, in Cambridge, Mass., studied unidirectional breathing in monitor lizards, which can be found throughout Africa, China, India and other parts of Southeast Asia. The researchers examined lungs from living and deceased monitor lizards, and found that when these large, often-colorful, carnivorous reptiles breathe, the airflow through their lungs is mostly one-way, unlike in humans and other mammals, which have a "tidal," or two-way, breathing pattern. Human lungs consist of a network of tubes that branch out into progressively smaller airways.

Exoplanet Habitable Zone Around Sunlike Stars Bigger Than Thought

Earth's place in the solar system is just right. It's not too hot, like Venus, and it's not too cold, like Mars, and this "Goldilocks zone" of habitability around other stars like the sun just might be bigger than thought, scientists say.

The Science of Shopping: Buy Gifts One at a Time

"Having multiple recipients in mind not only means that more gifts are needed, but it may change what shoppers focus on when making gift selections," wrote Mary Steffel of the University of Cincinnati and Robyn A. LeBoeuf of the University of Florida in the new paper published online Nov. 21 in the Journal of Consumer Research. The students were asked to pick gift cards as presents for university and out-of-town friends.

A New Diet Quickly Alters Gut Bacteria

The types of bacteria in your gut today may be different tomorrow, depending on what kinds of food you eat, a new study suggests. In the study, participants who switched from their normal diet to eating only animal products, including meat, cheese and eggs, saw their gut bacteria change rapidly — within one day. Gut bacteria also tended to express (or "turn on") different genes during the animal-based diet, ones that would allow them to break down protein. In contrast, the gut bacteria of another group of participants who ate a plant-based diet expressed genes that would allow them to ferment carbohydrates.

Shhh! Top-Secret Reconnaissance Drone Could Make Air Force Debut in 2015

A secret, new surveillance drone has been developed by defense giant Northrop Grumman. The drone, which is designed to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance missions, could enter operational service in the U.S. Air Force by 2015, according to news reports. Northrop, headquartered in Falls Church, Va., and the Air Force have been reticent to talk about the project, but the existence of the RQ-180 was first revealed in a report last week by Aviation Week. "The Air Force does not discuss this program," Air Force spokesperson Jennifer Cassidy told Aviation Week.

Dazzling Arizona Fireball Sparks Weekend Meteor Shower Interest

The Geminid meteor shower — one of the most spectacular meteor displays of the year — may hit its peak this weekend, but some stargazers in Arizona got a sneak preview of the celestial light show Tuesday night (Dec. 10). A meteor exploded over Arizona, rattling windows and producing at least one loud boom, according to press reports, but the meteor explosion itself was not part of the Geminid meteor shower, a meteor expert says. "It [the meteor explosion] was picked up by two of our meteor cameras in New Mexico as well as cameras in Arizona and the preliminary trajectory shows that it was definitely not a Geminid," NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke told reporters today. The Geminid meteor shower — so named for it radiant point in the constellation Gemini — is set to peak in the overnight hours from Dec. 13 to 14.

Northern Lights Dance Over Maine Farmhouse in Stunning Photo

Pink and green lights shimmer over a farmhouse in central Maine in this beautiful photo sent in to SPACE.com by a veteran night sky photographer this month.

Space Station Suffers Cooling System Shutdown, Some Systems Offline

HOUSTON — The International Space Station suffered a problem with half of its vital cooling system Wednesday (Dec. 11), resulting in a partial power down of some non-critical systems, NASA officials say. According to a NASA statement, "at no time was the crew or the station itself in any danger." The six astronauts and cosmonauts on the orbiting laboratory went to sleep as regularly scheduled with no concern for their safety, the statement said. On Wednesday, one of two pumps used to circulate ammonia coolant on the outside of the space station shut itself down after lower than normal temperatures were detected. By midday, ground controllers suspected that a flow control valve inside the pump might not be functioning correctly.

Wild Animal Selfies: Creatures Get Hip with Word of the Year

As humans clamber to grab smartphones, pose at arm's length, and snap well-framed pictures of themselves throughout their daily lives, the animal world goes about snapping selfies a little less earnestly, relying on humans to spread the images across the Internet. The wildlife pictures may not officially fit Oxford Dictionaries' definition of their recently announced 2013 Word of the Year as "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or a webcam and uploaded to a social media website," since animals don't use smartphones or social media. Earlier this month, an Australian sea eagle flew off with a video camera that wildlife rangers had set up in Western Australia to study crocodiles. The bird flapped with the camera for 70 miles (110 kilometers) before landing, pecking and staring into the lens for a selfie, according to the Sydney Associated Press.

New Cockroach Species Replacing Oriental Roach in Southwest US

From the garages of Southern California to the apartments of Philadelphia, oriental cockroaches have reared their heads wherever there is moisture and rubbish or leftover food. But at least in the southwestern United States, and perhaps soon in a town near you, a new species of the cockroach is replacing them: Turkestan cockroaches. Compared with the more familiar German, American and oriental cockroaches, the Turkestan roach is a relative newcomer to the scene, arriving to the United States in the 1970s and 1980s from somewhere in central Asia, perhaps Afghanistan, said Michael Rust, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside. The other roach species have been around for more than a century, and American cockroaches have been in the country for more than 400 years, Rust said.

How Nuclear Power Can Stop Global Warming

Gamer's Thrombosis: How Playing Too Long Could Be Deadly

A young man in New Zealand developed life-threatening blood clots in his leg after four days of playing PlayStation games, according to a report of his case. Perhaps playing video games, which involves sitting still for long periods of time, should be added to the list of ways people may increase their risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), the doctors who treated the man said. DVT is a dangerous and sometimes deadly condition, because blood clots that sometimes develop within leg veins can break off, travel through the bloodstream and block an artery bringing blood to a lung, a condition called pulmonary embolism. At the time of the case, the 31-year-old painter was on vacation, spending eight hours each day sitting on his bed with his legs outstretched playing PlayStation games, according to the case report.

Liberals & Conservatives Literally Moving Farther Apart

The resulting political sorting could make it easier for Democrats and Republicans to demonize one another. But the new study is the first to examine the sort on an individual level, said study researcher Matthew Motyl, a doctoral candidate in social psychology at the University of Virginia. "There's this political problem that people are segregating into red and blue communities, but we don't know why this happens," Motyl told LiveScience.

Parasitic Worms, Hot Baths Tested as Autism Treatments

Although the remedies may sound unconventional, doctors are currently testing whether infecting people with worms or giving them hot baths could reduce some symptoms of autism. In small, early clinical trials, the unusual treatments — which involve using parasitic worm eggs to trigger anti-inflammatory signals in the gut, or raising the body temperature to mimic the effects of an infection — lessened the repetitive behaviors and other symptoms of the disorders; "All three studies are interesting and merit further investigation," said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York in New Hyde Park, who was not involved in the studies. Inflammation and autism

Woman's Sleepwalking Leads to Dangerous Overdose

A 55-year-old woman in England experienced severe vision loss after she overdosed on prescription medication while she was sleepwalking, according to a new report of the case. Quinine sulfate is an anti-malaria medication that is sometimes prescribed for leg cramps, but can cause serve side effects, including vision problems. She felt she had taken some pills while sleepwalking, and the woman's daughter found an empty box of the tablets on the kitchen counter, according to the report. In fact, in 1994, the Food and Drug Administration warned against using the drug to prevent leg cramps, because for this condition, the risks of the drug outweigh the benefits, according to the agency.

Ozone Hole Won't Heal Until 2070, NASA Finds

SAN FRANCISCO — The banning of ozone-depleting chemicals hasn't yet caused detectable improvements in the Antarctic ozone hole, new research suggests. "Ozone is produced in the tropics, but it's transported by the winds from the tropics to the polar region," said Anne Douglass, a scientist with the Aura project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. That transport "varies a little bit from year to year." The findings suggest that measuring the total size of the ozone hole says little about ozone depletion, and that it's misleading to use the hole's extent alone to measure environmental progress. Ozone is a molecule made up of three oxygen atoms, and the ozone layer, which stretches from heights of 12 to 19 miles (20 to 30 kilometers) above the Earth's surface, protects life on Earth by shielding it from ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

Jupiter Moon Europa May Have Water Geysers Taller Than Everest

Jupiter's icy moon Europa may erupt with fleeting plumes of water more than 20 times the height of Mt. Everest, scientists say. They were spotted by comparing recent and older images of Europa taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. "A subsurface ocean at Europa potentially provides all conditions for microbial life — at least life we know," study lead author Lorenz Roth, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, told SPACE.com. To learn more about the Jovian moon, scientists analyzed ultraviolet images of Europa taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in November and December of 2012 as well as older images taken by Hubble in 1999.

It's a Duck, It's a Rooster, It's a … Dinosaur?

A new fossil discovery reveals the duck-billed dinosaur Edmontosaurus regalis sported a fleshy comb on its head, similar to the ones on modern-day roosters. "We're never short of being surprised by what these animals looked like," said study researcher Phil Bell, a paleontologist at the University of New England in Australia. In the past century, paleontologists have discovered several hadrosaur fossils with skin impressions pressed into the rock around the bones. But skin impressions rarely preserve well around the skull, Bell said.

Chinese Rocket Failure Destroys Earth-Observation Satellite

China's state-run Xinhua news agency released a three-paragraph story on the rocket malfunction. "The data obtained show that the subsystems of CBERS 3 functioned normally during the [launch]," INPE said. The compact car-sized CBERS 3 satellite was supposed to enter a 483-mile-high polar orbit with an inclination of 98.5 degrees. Brazilian news reports said the satellite cost $250 million, with Brazil and China equally sharing the investment.

How Nelson Mandela Navigated the Politics of Science (Op-Ed)

Michael Halpern is program manager at the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. This Op-Ed was adapted from a post to the UCS blog The Equation.Halpern contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. As we celebrate the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela, it is worth reflecting at this time on Mandela's ability to transcend politics when speaking about contentious scientific issues. Nowhere was this more apparent than with the difficult politics surrounding HIV and AIDS at the turn of the millennium.

NASA: Space Station Cooling Malfunction May Delay Private Cargo Ship Launch

The failure of a vital cooling pump on the International Space Station could delay plans to launch a privately built cargo ship on its first official delivery mission to the orbiting lab next week, NASA officials said today (Dec. 12). The space station malfunction occurred Wednesday (Dec. 11) when a pump valve failed, shutting down half of the orbiting laboratory's cooling system one week before the planned launch of a commercial Cygnus spacecraft by the company Orbital Sciences. That mission, called Orbital 1, is slated to lift off Dec. 18 from Wallops Island, Va., to deliver fresh supplies to the space station. Kenny Todd, head of NASA's space station mission management team, said officials are waiting for more information on the cooling system problem before making a decision on whether to proceed with the launch or delay the flight to allow repairs.

Reason: Why You Can't Control Holiday Eating (Op-Ed)

Jessie de Witt Huberts is a postdoctoral student at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. If you still feel tempted — yes, most of those well laid-plans are very likely to go out of the window when confronted with mom's cookies — then stop and count to 10, assuming that in these 10 seconds you will think of those skinny jeans waiting to be worn. But in those 10 seconds, you may not actually be thinking about fitting into those skinny jeans again or showing off your six-pack next summer.

No Dream is Too Big for China's Mother River (Op-Ed)

Michael Reuter is director of the Great Rivers Partnership for The Nature Conservancy. He contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The wild, brown, churning Yangtze river I knew in 2005 is gone. At Yibin, where she forms at the confluence of the Jinsha and Min rivers, the Yangtze moves an average annual flow 10 times that of the Colorado River.

In a Warming Arctic, Oil Drilling Brings Disaster (Op-Ed)

Frances Beinecke is the president of NRDC — an environmental advocacy organization with 1.4 million supporters nationwide — served on the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, and holds a leadership role in several environmental organizations. Beinecke contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. But these fiascoes haven't stopped Shell.

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Delievered to you by Feedamail.
Unsubscribe

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Puzzling Streaks On Mars May Be From Flowing Water

Dark seasonal streaks on slopes near the Martian equator may be a sign of flowing salt water on Mars, liquid runoff that melts and evaporates during the planet's warmer months, scientists say. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted the dark streaks on Mars as they formed and grew in the planet's late spring and summer seasons, when the Martian equatorial region receives the most sunlight. These seasonally occurring flows — known as Recurring Slope Lineae — were previously seen on Martian slopes at mid-latitudes, but the MRO spacecraft has now detected them near the equator of the Red Planet. While there have been no direct detections of liquid water, the new findings hint at a surprisingly active water cycle on Mars today, said study leader Alfred McEwen, a professor of planetary geology at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Nobel awards ceremony held with many VIPs away for Mandela memorial

By Sven Nordenstam STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden held its lavish annual Nobel awards ceremony on Tuesday attended by laureates and royals, but their ranks were depleted when many VIPs flocked to the memorial for anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela in South Africa. More than 1,300 guests at the banquet attended the Nobel dinner in Stockholm City Hall to dine, chat and listen to laureates including Britain's Peter Higgs and Francois Englert of Belgium, who won the Nobel Prize for physics - speak at Sweden's most prestigious social event. Swedish newspapers spotlighted the hastily rearranged seating at the table of honor after Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and Princess Victoria cancelled their attendance to fly to South Africa. The ceremony was also missing Canadian Nobel-winning author Alice Munro, who was unable to attend because of ill health.

Some Tarantula Bites More Harmful Than Thought

A 45-year-old man went to an emergency room in Switzerland complaining of severe muscle spasms and chest pains, according to the case report. Those symptoms can appear with a number of conditions, said Dr. Joan Fuchs, a junior physician and specialist in venomous and poisonous animals at the Swiss Toxicological Information Center, who reported the man's case in the journal Toxicon in November.

Common Stomach Drugs May Increase Risk of Vitamin Deficiency

People who take common stomach acid-suppressing medications may be at increased risk of not getting enough vitamin B12, a new study suggests. In the study, people who took proton pump inhibitors — medications used to treat acid reflux and other stomach and esophageal conditions — for two or more years were 65 percent more likely to be diagnosed with vitamin B12 deficiency than those who did not take such medications. And people who took another type of acid-suppressing drug, called histamine 2 receptor antagonists, for two or more years were 25 percent more likely to have vitamin B12 deficiency, the study found. The findings held even after the researchers accounted for factors that might increase the risk of vitamin B12 deficiency, such as having diabetes or thyroid disease, or abusing alcohol.

Weapons watchdog receives Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Recalling the "burning, blinding and suffocating" horrors of chemical weapons, the head of a watchdog trying to consign them to history accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday, as prize winners in medicine, physics and other categories also took bows for their awards.

NASA Spacecraft Captures Unprecedented Views of the Sun's Mystery Layer

During its first six months in space, NASA's IRIS telescope has snapped stunning images of an obscure layer of the sun, revealing previously unseen violence and complexity in the lowest slivers of our star's atmosphere, scientists say. The IRIS Observatory launched in June and its name is short for Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph. Researchers working on the mission presented some of the probe's observations thus far Monday (Dec. 9) at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. [Photos: NASA's IRIS Sun Observatory Mission in Space] "We are seeing rich and unprecedented images of violent events in which gases are accelerated to very high velocities while being rapidly heated to hundreds of thousands of degrees," Bart De Pontieu, the IRIS science lead at Lockheed Martin, said in a statement.

Trippy! Chameleons Intimidate Rivals with Quick Color Change

Color-morphing may sound less intimidating than, say, baring teeth or dragging hooves, but male chameleons rely on such psychedelic intimidation to ward off male rivals, according to a new study. Chameleons are popularly thought to use their color-changing abilities to blend into their environments, but, in recent years, researchers have found this shade-shifting may play a larger role in social interactions than in camouflage. In particular, scientists have noted that many male chameleons make themselves more conspicuous to others by changing colors along the sides of their bodies and tops of their heads before and during competitions. Now, researchers at Arizona State University have shown that the faster and brighter a chameleon changes color, the more likely that male is to win a battle over territory.

Giant Blob of Hot Rock Hidden Under Antarctic Ice

SAN FRANCISCO — A big, hot blob hiding beneath the bottom of the world could be evidence of a long-sought mantle plume under West Antarctica, researchers said Monday (Dec. 9) here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The possible hotspot — a plume of superheated rock rising from Earth's mantle — sits under Marie Byrd Land, a broad dome at West Antarctica's edge where many active volcanoes above and below the ice spit lava and ash. Beneath Marie Byrd Land, earthquake waves slow down, suggesting the mantle here is warmer than surrounding rocks. The strongest low-velocity zone sits below Marie Byrd Land's Executive Committee Range, directly under the Mount Sidley volcano, said Andrew Lloyd, a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis.

What Lives in Antarctica's Buried Lake?

SAN FRANCISCO — A thriving community of single-celled microbes that consume carbon dioxide for food populate Antarctica's glacial Lake Whillans, the shallow lake buried under thousands of feet of ice, a researcher said here today (Dec. 10) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Water sampled from Lake Whillans in January 2013 is dominated by a dozen species of Archaea chemoautotrophs — mainly organisms that eat carbon dioxide, iron, sulfur and ammonia for energy, said John Priscu, a biologist at Montana State University who led the Lake Whillans microbiology team. In January, drillers broke through Lake Whillans' surface and carefully brought uncontaminated water samples to the surface, after hauling more than a million pounds of equipment across Antarctica by tractor caravan. Scientists have also discovered methane bubbling up into Whillans from the lake bottom — about 7.7 lbs. (3.5 kilograms) per day, Priscu said.

Human-Caused Climate Change May Have Worsened Syrian Unrest

SAN FRANCISCO — Drought was a key factor contributing to unrest and civil war in Syria, and the severity of the drought was probably a result of human-caused climate change, new research presented here Monday (Dec. 9) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union suggests. The study analysis suggests that the drought was too severe to be simply a result of natural variability in precipitation. "We don't have any observed evidence to support a 100-year trend in precipitation that we would prescribe as being natural," said study co-author Colin Kelley, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at Santa Barbara. "He was making the case that in each case there was an overlooked environmental stress that was important," Kelley told LiveScience.

Climate Change May Worsen Mold Allergies

A common fungus tends to grow more allergenic traits in the presence of high carbon dioxide, Naama Lang-Yona, a doctoral candidate in environmental sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said here Monday (Dec. 9) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The fungus, called Aspergillus fumigatus, is incredibly common. "Its natural habitat is decomposed biomass and soils, but you could find it in many other places, such as our walls, air-conditioning filters," Lang-Yona said in an email. Allergies have been on the rise in the past several decades, and Lang-Yona and her colleagues wondered how atmospheric changes influenced this trend.

Alan Alda's science contest asks: What is color?

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — How do you explain color to an 11-year-old?

Russian Meteor, from Birth to Fiery Death: An Asteroid's Story

Scientists have pieced together the history of the space rock that slammed into the atmosphere over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on Feb. 15, creating a shock wave that injured 1,200 people. It's a long, convoluted tale that picks up just after the solar system started coming together 4.56 billion years ago. Molten droplets that found their way into the Chelyabinsk object formed within the first four million years of solar system history, David Kring of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston said here Monday (Dec. 9) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Further, analysis of "shock veins" within Chelyabinsk meteorites indicate that the parent body suffered a major impact about 125 million years after the solar system started forming.

G8 summit calls for AIDS-style fight against dementia

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - The world needs to fight the spread of dementia in the same way it mobilized against AIDS, a British government minister told a special summit on the disease on Wednesday, saying failure to tackle it would wreck state health budgets. Global cases of dementia are expected to treble by 2050, yet scientists are still struggling to understand the basic biology of the memory-robbing brain condition, and the medicine cupboard is bare. "In terms of a cure, or even a treatment that can modify the disease, we are empty-handed," World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan told ministers, campaigners, scientists and drug industry executives from the Group of Eight leading economies at the summit in London. British Health Minister Jeremy Hunt said there were lessons to be learnt from the fight against AIDS, where a 2005 G8 summit played a key role in pushing for better and more widely available drugs.

Terracotta Warriors Inspired by Ancient Greek Art

The Terracotta Warriors, along with other life-size sculptures built for the First Emperor of China, were inspired by Greek art, new research indicates. About 8,000 Terracotta Warriors, which are life-size statues of infantryman, cavalry, archers, charioteers and generals, were buried in three pits less than a mile to the northeast of the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor. He unified the country through conquest more than 2,200 years ago. Now, new research points to ancient Greek sculpture as the inspiration for the emperor's afterlife army. "It is perfectly possible and actually likely that the sculptures of the First Emperor are the result of early contact between Greece and China," writes Lukas Nickel, a reader with the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, in the most recent edition of the journal Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.

People Who Fear Single Life Settle for Less, Study Finds

Confirming a bit of conventional wisdom, a new study finds that people who fear being single often settle for less in love; they're more likely to cling to unhappy relationships and more willing to date duds, the research suggests.

G8 summit calls for AIDS-style fight against dementia

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - The world needs to fight the spread of dementia in the same way it mobilised against AIDS, a British government minister told a special summit on the disease on Wednesday, saying failure to tackle it would wreck state health budgets. Global cases of dementia are expected to treble by 2050, yet scientists are still struggling to understand the basic biology of the memory-robbing brain condition, and the medicine cupboard is bare. "In terms of a cure, or even a treatment that can modify the disease, we are empty-handed," World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan told ministers, campaigners, scientists and drug industry executives from the Group of Eight leading economies at the summit in London. British Health Minister Jeremy Hunt said there were lessons to be learnt from the fight against AIDS, where a 2005 G8 summit played a key role in pushing for better and more widely available drugs.

Canada Makes North Pole Claim

Move over, Santa — Canada's claiming the North Pole. In a move has nothing to do with Christmas, Canada filed its claim Friday (Dec. 6) to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, according to AFP. The claims hinge on the extent of Canada's continental shelf under the Atlantic Ocean — the underwater extent of the North American continent that ends in an abrupt escarpment — and the nation is working to map the continental shelf under the Arctic to bolster their North Pole claim. Canada's claim will not go unchallenged.

Undersea Cliff May Hold Clues to Dinosaur-Killing Cosmic Impact

Scientists have mapped a dramatic undersea cliff in the southern Gulf of Mexico that could hold clues to the ancient cosmic collision that wiped out the dinosaurs. Stretching some 372 miles (600 kilometers) long with steep sides that rise about 13,100 feet (4,000 meters), the so-called Campeche Escarpment might rival a wall of the Grand Canyon in its splendor were it not underwater.

RIP Comet ISON: Scientists Declare Famous 'Sungrazer' Dead After Sun Encounter

SAN FRANCISCO — It's time to accept reality: Comet ISON is dead. "At this point, it seems like there's nothing left," comet expert Karl Battams, of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., said here today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. "Comet ISON is dead; Comet ISON, which was discovered by two Russian amateur astronomers in September 2012, was making its first trip to the inner solar system from the distant and frigid Oort Cloud.

Stronger Tornadoes May Be Menacing US

SAN FRANCISCO — The trail of twisted metal and torn roofs left behind by massive twisters is growing longer and wider, a sign that tornadoes may be growing stronger, climate scientist James Elsner said here Tuesday (Dec. 10) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Beginning in 2000, tornado intensity — as measured by a twister's damage path — started rising sharply, said Elsner, of Florida State University. "I'm not saying this is climate change, but I do think there is a climate effect," he said. Devastating tornado outbreaks in recent years, such as the massive storm that injured hundreds in Moore, Okla., this summer, have focused attention on whether climate change is altering tornado frequency and strength.

US Navy's Submarine-Launched Drone Paves Way For Future Military Tech

The U.S. Navy recently launched a drone from a submerged submarine, successfully demonstrating a new way for the military to use unmanned vehicles to conduct surveillance missions in the future. The drone was fired from a torpedo tube on the USS Providence using a specially designed launch system known as "Sea Robin," according to a statement from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory detailing the test flight. The Sea Robin system is built to fit inside an empty canister aboard the submarine, which is normally used to deploy Tomahawk cruise missiles. Once fired from the submarine, the Sea Robin launch vehicle carries the drone to the ocean surface.

Actor Alan Alda Challenges Scientists to Explain Color to Kids

Actor Alan Alda has a question: "What is color?" Alda is famous for starring in "M*A*S*H" and "The West Wing," but he is also a founding member of the Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in New York.

Amateur Astronomer Sees Jupiter, 2 Moons & a Shadow (Photo)

Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, reigns supreme in an eye-catching photo captured by a veteran amateur astronomer. The planet's icy moon Europa and volcanic satellite Io also make an appearance in the image. Astrophotographer Andrew Kwon snapped the stunning photo of Jupiter on Nov. 20 from his backyard observatory in Mississauga, Ontario in Canada.

Raw Milk: 1 in 6 Who Drink It Gets Sick

On average, one in six people who drink raw milk becomes ill with bacterial or parasite infections, according to researchers at the Minnesota Department of Health. The researchers found 530 laboratory-confirmed cases of infections — including bacterial infections from Salmonella, E. coli and Campylobacter, as well as parasitic infections called cryptosporidiosis — among Minnesota patients who reported drinking raw milk between 2001 and 2010. Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized (heated to kill germs and then cooled quickly). Based on known rates of underdiagnosing these infections, the researchers estimated that 20,502 Minnesotans, or 17 percent of raw milk consumers, actually became ill during the study period after consuming raw milk, according to the study, published today (Dec. 11) in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, a public health journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Delievered to you by Feedamail.
Unsubscribe