GoogleTrends

Thursday, December 19, 2013

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Winter Solstice: The Sun Stands Still on Saturday

The Earth's axis currently points in a northerly direction close to the second-magnitude star Polaris, also known as the Pole Star. Because the Earth's axis points to Polaris no matter where Earth happens to be in its orbit, the sun appears to move over the year from 23.5 degrees north of the celestial equator on June 21 to 23.5 degrees south of the celestial equator on Dec. 21.

The 7 Biggest Holiday Myths

The holiday season is filled with traditions like caroling, decorating with boughs of holly and all sorts of partying, drinking and unbridled merrymaking. Myth 1: The suicide rate jumps During the 2009-2010 holiday season, almost 50 percent of news articles in which suicide was mentioned perpetuated the story that the suicide rate peaks during the holidays, supposedly when some people feel alone or isolated from family and friends, according to the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Teens' Marijuana Use Continues to Rise

An increasing number of high-school students say they don't think regular marijuana use is harmful, according to a new report from the National Institutes of Health. About 6.5 percent of high-school seniors said they regularly smoked marijuana in 2013, compared with 6 percent in 2003 and 2.4 percent in 1993, according to the report, which was sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and included information from about 42,000 students from 389 schools across the United States. "It is important to remember that over the past two decades, levels of THC — the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana — have gone up a great deal, from 3.75 percent in 1995 to an average of 15 percent in today's marijuana cigarettes," Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told reporters today. Studies also have shown that the earlier people start using marijuana, the more likely they are to become addicted to other drugs.

Scientists prove deadly human MERS virus also infects camels

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have proved for the first time that the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) virus that has killed 71 people can also infect camels, strengthening suspicions the animals may be a source of the human outbreak. Researchers from the Netherlands and Qatar used gene-sequencing techniques to show that three dromedary, or one-humped camels, on a farm in Qatar where two people had contracted the MERS coronavirus (CoV) were also infected. But the researchers cautioned it is too early to say whether the camels were definitely the source of the two human cases - in a 61-year-old man and then in a 23-year-old male employee of the farm - and more research is needed. Both the men infected in Qatar recovered.

Scientists start to unpick narcolepsy link to GSK flu vaccine

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have found that the sleep disorder narcolepsy can sometimes be triggered by a scientific phenomenon known as "molecular mimicry", offering a possible explanation for its link to a GlaxoSmithKline H1N1 pandemic flu vaccine. Results from U.S. researchers showed the debilitating disorder, characterized by sudden sleepiness and muscle weakness, can be set off by an immune response to a portion of a protein from the H1N1 virus that is very similar to a region of a protein called hypocretin, which is key to narcolepsy. Previous studies in countries where GSK's Pandemrix vaccine was used in the 2009/2010 flu pandemic have found its use was linked to a significant rise in cases of narcolepsy in children. Studies in Britain, Finland, Sweden and Ireland found such a link, and GSK says at least 900 narcolepsy cases associated with the vaccine have so far been reported in Europe.

Anger Disorders May Be Linked to Inflammation

For some people, violent behavior and anger may be linked with inflammation in their bodies, a new study finds. The researchers measured markers of inflammation in the blood of 70 people diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder (IED), a condition that involves repeated episodes of impulsive aggression and temper tantrums, as seen in road rage, domestic abuse and throwing or breaking objects. The study also included 61 people diagnosed with psychiatric disorders not involving aggression, and 67 participants with no psychiatric disorder, who served as controls. The results showed a direct relationship between levels of two markers of inflammation and impulsivity and aggression in people with IED, but not in control participants.

Galaxy-Mapping Gaia Spacecraft Set for Launch Thursday: How to Watch Live

The Gaia mission, scheduled to launch Thursday morning (Dec. 19), could be a bonanza for discovering exoplanets, perhaps finding more than 2,500 new alien worlds, scientists suggest. Gaia, a $1 billion (740 million euros) mission from the European Space Agency (ESA), aims to chart a 3D map of the Milky Way by surveying more than 1 billion stars, amounting to about 1 percent of the stars in the galaxy, using its billion-pixel camera. To pinpoint the position of a star in 3D — a field known as astrometry — Gaia will measure the distance of the star from the sun.

Holiday Spacewalks Set to Fix Space Station's Cooling System

Repairing a problem with the International Space Station's vital cooling system will require two or three spacewalks over the next week, NASA officials said today (Dec. 18).

Astronauts prepare for first spacewalk since helmet leak problem

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Astronauts aboard the International Space Station prepared for an unexpected series of spacewalks by fabricating spacesuit snorkels they can use for breathing in case of another helmet water leak, NASA officials said on Wednesday. The spacewalks, the first of which is slated to begin at 7:10 a.m. EST (1210 GMT) on Saturday, are needed to replace one of two cooling pumps outside the $100 billion complex, which flies about 250 miles above Earth. U.S. spacewalks have been suspended since July after a spacesuit helmet worn by Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano filled with water, causing him to nearly drown.

Evolution lessons in Texas biology textbook will stay, board says

By Lisa Maria Garza DALLAS (Reuters) - A panel of experts has rejected concerns by religious conservatives in Texas that a high school biology textbook contained factual errors about evolution and a state board approved the book on Wednesday for use in public schools. The debate over the Pearson Biology textbook was the latest episode of a lengthy battle by evangelicals in Texas to insert Christian and Biblical teachings into public school textbooks. Two years ago, conservatives pushed for changes in history textbooks, including one that would have downplayed Thomas Jefferson's role in American history for his support of the separation of church and state. The second-most populous U.S. state, Texas influences textbook selections for schools nationwide.

China to expand presence in Antarctica with new research bases

China will expand its presence in Antarctica by building a fourth research base and finding a site for a fifth, a state-run newspaper said on Thursday, as the country steps up its increasingly far-flung scientific efforts. Chinese scientists are increasingly looking beyond China for their research, including sending submersibles to explore the bottom of the ocean and last weekend landing the country's first probe on the moon. Workers will build a summer field camp called Taishan and look for a site for another research station, the official China Daily reported. "As a latecomer to Antarctic scientific research, China is catching up," the report cited Qu Tanzhou, director of the State Oceanic Administration's Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration, as saying.

Liftoff! European Spacecraft Launches to Map 1 Billion Stars

A European probe roared into space Thursday (Dec. 19), kicking off an ambitious mission to map a billion Milky Way stars in high resolution. The European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft lifted off its pad at Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at 4:12 a.m. EST (0912 GMT) Thursday, carried aloft by a Russian Soyuz-Fregat rocket. Over the next five years, Gaia aims not only to pinpoint the locations of 1 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy, but also to determine where these stars are moving, what they are made of and how luminous they are.

In Memoriam: The Spacecraft We Loved and Lost in 2013

But what about the spacecraft that we lost? No matter the cause of death, we at SPACE.com wish to honor the spacecraft that met their end this year. From NASA-funded missions to a China-Brazil collaboration, here is our list of some of the spacecraft we loved and lost in 2013. NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft suffered a major failure this year when the second of its four reaction wheels — devices that keep the craft properly positioned in space — malfunctioned.

Elf on a Shelf: The Strange History of Santa's Little Helpers

The children of North America have a new Christmas tradition: The elf on the shelf. Alternatively panned as creepy and adored as a fun holiday ritual, the trademarked Elf on the Shelf dates back to 2005, when author Carol Aebersold self-published a tale of a little elf sent by Santa to report on children's behavior leading up to Christmas. Ancient Norse mythology refers to the álfar, also known as huldufólk, or "hidden folk." However, it's risky to translate álfar directly to the English word "elf," said Terry Gunnell, a folklorist at the University of Iceland. Some ancient poems place them side by side with the Norse gods, perhaps as another word for the Vanir, a group of gods associated with fertility, or perhaps as their own godly race.

Why Halley's Comet May Be Linked to Famine 1,500 Years Ago

A piece of the famous Halley's comet likely slammed into Earth in A.D. 536, blasting so much dust into the atmosphere that the planet cooled considerably, a new study suggests. The ice cores record large amounts of atmospheric dust during this seven-year period, not all of it originating on Earth. "I have all this extraterrestrial stuff in my ice core," study leader Dallas Abbott, of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told LiveScience here last week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Certain characteristics, such as high levels of tin, identify a comet as the origin of the alien dust, Abbott said.

'Robot Olympics': 17 Cyborg Athletes to Vie for Glory in DARPA Challenge

Before athletes from around the world gather for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, 17 robotics teams will compete for glory — and funding — this week in the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials. DARPA is the branch of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for experimenting with and developing new technologies for the military. The Robotics Challenge aims to foster the development of robots that could someday work alongside humans in the aftermath of disasters or emergencies, according to DARPA officials. "The purpose of the program is really to develop technology that can help make us much more robust to both natural and man-made disasters," said Gill Pratt, program manager of the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC).

Babies Abound at Penguin Colony Found by Poop

A recent visit to a remote Antarctic emperor penguin colony found thousands of fuzzy penguin chicks, meaning the colony is even bigger than previously thought. A team from Belgium's Princess Elisabeth Antarctica polar research station estimates there are 15,000 penguins living in four groups at the colony, on East Antarctica's Princess Ragnhild Coast. "The [good] weather this season gave us the opportunity this season to spend a bit more of time counting individual emperor penguins," said Alain Hubert, the expedition leader and founder of the International Polar Foundation, which designed and built the research station. this opinion can be reinforced by the fact that I didn't find more than five dead little chicks at the overwintering place," Hubert told LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet in an email interview from Antarctica.

Volcano Lightning Strikes — in the Lab

The electrifying displays of lightning often seen over volcanoes have now been experimentally generated in the lab, research that could help shed light on the effects volcanic eruptions have on the landscape, the scientists behind the work say. The blisteringly hot plumes of ash rising above volcanic eruptions often burst with lightning storms, the largest of which rival the most powerful thunderstorms known on Earth. Still, much remains unknown about volcanic lightning, since investigators rarely get to see these bolts in nature or get close enough to probe their electrical properties. Now, for the first time, scientists have experimentally simulated volcanic lightning in the lab, which could help model the phenomenon's origins and behavior.

US Salt Intake Drops Slightly, But Americans Still Eat Too Much

The amount of sodium Americans consume has decreased very slightly over the last decade, but most people still eat too much of the stuff, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow LiveScience@livescience, Facebook & Google+.

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Delievered to you by Feedamail.
Unsubscribe

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Tiny 'Robot Dragonfly' Dodges Obstacles Midair, On Its Own

Engineers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands developed the small drone equipped with transparent wings and a special vision system that enables it to perceive objects in its path. The so-called DelFly Explorer is a Micro Air Vehicle, which is a class of small, insectlike aerial drones that are used for research, commercial, military and commercial purposes. The DelFly Explorer is the first Micro Air Vehicle to fly and avoid obstacles autonomously, according to Guido de Croon, an assistant professor in the Micro Air Vehicle Lab at Delft University of Technology. The ultra-lightweight DelFly Explorer weighs only 0.7 ounces (20 grams), which is equivalent to just a few sheets of paper.

Long-Lost Nazi Diary Transferred to Holocaust Museum

Missing for decades, the rediscovered diary of Alfred Rosenberg — a chief Nazi ideologue and one of Adolf Hitler's closest confidants — was officially turned over to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., Tuesday (Dec. 17). Under Hitler, Rosenberg led the Nazi party's foreign affairs department and served as the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. it was used as evidence in the Nuremberg trials — in which major political and military leaders in Nazi Germany were tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity — some of the papers were published and parts of the diary are even in the collection of the U.S. National Archives. The German-born American lawyer Robert Kempner, who served as a prosecutor during the Nuremberg trials, brought the diary to the United States.

5 Myths About the Light Bulb Ban

When the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) was signed into law in 2007, among its provisions was the eventual phasing out of an icon of 20th-century life: the familiar (but notoriously inefficient) incandescent light bulb, which wastes 90 percent of its energy use as heat, not light. Myth 3: Consumers will lose money buying expensive new light bulbs.

Expedition Explores Underwater 'Grand Canyon'

A five-week expedition to map and sample a giant underwater canyon off the northwest coast of Morocco has completed its mission, yielding the best look yet at the deep-sea wonder. More than half a mile (about 1 kilometer) deep, 280 miles (450 km) long and up to 20 miles (30 km) wide, Agadir Canyon is approximately the size of the Grand Canyon. Up until now, Agadir Canyon, considered by some measures the world's largest undersea canyon, has rarely been explored, said British expedition leader Russell Wynn of the National Oceanography Centre in England. "There are a lot of interesting features that no one has ever gone and looked at," Wynn told LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

December US Snow Pack Largest in a Decade

Earlier this week, snow covered more than half of the continental United States, the highest this measure has reached for this date in a decade, according to government scientists. As of Dec. 15, the white, fluffy stuff covered 53 percent of the lower 48, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported. The average monthly temperature in the continental United States in November was 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit (0.2 degrees Celsius), which is below the 20th century average, Climate Central noted. "With the noteworthy exception of Alaska, nearly every state was affected by the unusually cold air at some point during the November-to-December timeframe, with temperatures dipping down to at least minus 43 [degrees] F (minus 42 C) in Montana on Dec. 8, and running 10 to 20 [degrees] F (5.5 to 11 C) below average elsewhere," Climate Central reported.

Stunning Photo: Mount Etna's Lava Snakes Through Snow

Winter brings cooling snows to Italy's fiery Mount Etna, where tourists flock to ski resorts below the volcano's belching craters.

NASA Moon Probe Eyeing Chinese Lunar Lander from Orbit

A sharp-eyed NASA spacecraft is keeping tabs on China's recently arrived lunar lander, all in the name of science. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has added China's Chang'e 3 lander and associated rover — which touched down on the moon on Saturday (Dec. 14) — to its list of observation targets. "Repeated imaging of the landing site by LROC [the LRO Camera] will allow for detailed measurements of changes to the surface caused by the landing and movement of the Chang'e 3 rover," NASA officials wrote in a statement on Friday (Dec. 13). "The resulting atmospheric and surface changes will provide LRO with a new scientific opportunity to observe the transport of gases on the moon and the effects of local disturbances on the lunar regolith."

Brains Hardwired to Accept Celebrity Health Advice

What drives people to trust the health advice of celebrities, even though most of these individuals clearly have no medical background, and even tough their advice often goes against convention and logic? Humans' gray matter is hardwired to trust celebrities, according to researchers at McMaster University in Ontario. Celebrities can play an important role in educating the public about health issues, said Steven Hoffman, assistant professor of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics at McMaster University's DeGroote School of Medicine, and lead author on the report. Such celebrities do a world of good, Hoffman said.

NASA Plans 3 Spacewalks to Fix Space Station, Delaying Private Cargo Launch

A problem with the International Space Station's cooling system will require a series of spacewalks to fix, pushing the planned Thursday (Dec. 19) launch of a private cargo spacecraft into next month. NASA has decided that three spacewalks — one each on Dec. 21, Dec. 23 and Dec. 25 — will be necessary to replace a faulty pump module on the orbiting lab. The holiday spacewalks will postpone the first contracted cargo mission of aerospace firm Orbital Sciences' unmanned Cygnus spacecraft until mid-January at the earliest, NASA officials announced today (Dec. 17). You can watch coverage of the extravehicular activities here on SPACE.com beginning each day at 6:15 a.m. EST, courtesy of NASA TV. "NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins will remove a pump module that has a failed valve.

'Virgin Births' Reveal Problems with Health Surveys

Of the nearly 8,000 women in the study who were interviewed confidentially and multiple times for 14 years, 5,340 women reported a pregnancy, and 45 (0.8 percent) of those who reported pregnancies also reported being a virgin. "Our first thought was that we had made a programming error," said study researcher Amy Herring, a professor of biostatistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A number of participants had indicated the date of their first sexual intercourse and the date of their pregnancy in a way that it meant they had given birth before having had sex. Instead, they answered a series of questions on pregnancy history and a separate series of questions on vaginal intercourse," Herring said.

Celestial Holiday Wreath Shines in New Hubble Photo

With Christmas approaching, it's time again for eggnog and gift-giving and space photos of celestial ornaments, hanging thousands of light-years away. The Hubble Space Telescope snapped this image, released by NASA Tuesday (Dec. 17), showing a huge star sending "light echoes" into the dust that surrounds it like a twinkling wreath. The giant star at the center of the image is RS Puppis, which is 200 times larger than our sun and can be seen in the Southern Hemisphere sky. Cepheid variable stars expand and shrink in a rhythmic pattern, growing brighter and then dimmer over a regular period of days or weeks, as this time-lapse video shows.

Eye Cells Inkjet-Printed for First Time

The demonstration is a step toward producing tissue implants that could cure some types of blindness. Scientists have previously printed embryonic stem cells and other immature cells. The loss of nerve cells in the retina causes many eye diseases that lead to blindness, said Dr. Keith Martin, a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Cambridge, in England, and co-author of the study detailed online today (Dec. 17) in the journal Biofabrication. The work is preliminary, but eventually, the aim is to be able to print a replacement retina, Martin told LiveScience.

ADHD Meds Can Cause Long-Lasting Erections

Medicines that are typically used to treat attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may have a painful side effect: long-lasting erections, according to new data. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned consumers today (Dec. 17) that ADHD medications containing the active ingredient methylphenidate — which includes common drugs such as Ritalin and Concerta — can cause erections that last more than four hours. People taking methylphenidate who develop long-lasting erections should seek immediate medical treatment to prevent long-term problems with the penis, the FDA said. Priapism can lead to permanent damage to the penis if the condition isn't treated. The FDA has received 15 reports of priapism in those taking drugs with methylphenidate from 1997 through 2012 through an adverse reporting system.

Mock Mars Mission: How Science on Earth Can Help Build Martian Colony

If a solar flare is on its way to the Mars Desert Research Station in January, Joseph Jessup wants to make sure Crew 133 is prepared to react if necessary. That's why he's driving from Arizona to the Mars Society facility in Utah with a radio telescope in the back of his car. His portable telescope can not only detect solar particles at a range of 20 megahertz, but at night (after the sun has set) could be turned to Jupiter to spot electromagnetic radiation emanating from the immense planet. Utah, of course, is safely underneath Earth's atmosphere, but the research would have applications for a future Mars colony.

Organic Material Found Trapped in Ancient Meteorite-Formed Glass

Scientists have found organics from Earth's swamp trapped inside of glass created by a meteor impact almost a million years ago. Though the impact glass was found on Earth, scientists say that similar samples could have been thrown into space by this or other blasts, allowing organics to be transported from one planet to another. As it slammed into the Earth, temperatures exceeded 1,700 degrees Celsius (3,100 degrees Fahrenheit), melting rock and creating glass sphericals, as well as a quarter-mile wide hole known as the Darwin Crater. "The reason the glass is so abundant seems likely to relate to the presence of volatiles like water at the surface when the impact occurred," lead author Kieren Howard of the City University of New York told Astrobiology by email.

Inscriptions Everywhere! Magical Medieval Crypt Holds 7 Male Mummies

A 900-year-old medieval crypt, containing seven naturally mummified bodies and walls covered with inscriptions, has been excavated in a monastery at Old Dongola, the capital of a lost medieval kingdom that flourished in the Nile Valley. Old Dongola is located in modern-day Sudan, and 900 years ago, it was the capital of Makuria, a Christian kingdom that lived in peace with its Islamic neighbor to the north. The inscriptions on the walls of the crypt, inscribed with black ink on a thin layer of whitewash (paint), were written in Greek and Sahidic Coptic. The inscriptions, written by "Ioannes," who left a signature on three and possibly four of the walls, likely served as protection for the deceased against evil powers, the researchers said.

Jupiter and Moon Meet Up in Night Sky Tonight

This cosmic companion is not a star, but the largest planet in our solar system: Jupiter. Jupiter currently blazes at negative 2.7 magnitude, meaning that it is three times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. It looks quite different from Jupiter. In fact, Jupiter will be exactlyopposite to the sun in our sky.

Smart Snowplows Aim to Make White Winters Safer

In a push to save money and lives this winter, four U.S. states are dispatching smart snowplows to gather road and weather conditions in almost real-time. The system integrates GPS-coded measurements from sensors on the snowplows with computer weather models and satellite and radar observations to produce updates every five to 15 minutes about road and weather conditions. These detailed, close to real-time snapshots are then relayed to transportation officials in the hope that they will be able to target the most dangerous stretches of highway before accidents happen. "We want to reduce that white-knuckle experience of suddenly skidding on ice," scientist Sheldon Drobot, who oversees the design of the system at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said in a statement.

Dutch Rock Is Long-Lost Meteorite

A hunk of rock found in a private collection is a rare meteorite, researchers have announced. The brown-black rock, which is small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, plummeted to Earth with a flash of light and a hissing sound on Oct. 27, 1873. It landed in a field near the Dutch village of Diepenveen. But the tale of this space rock didn't come to light until 2012, when an amateur astronomer named Henk Nieuwenhuis came across it in the collections of a "Mrs. L. Kiers," according to the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, a museum in Leiden, Netherlands, which now has custody of the meteorite.

Lasers Could Help Protect Polar-Bear Dens from Oil Drilling

Polar-bear dens, where mama bears raise young cubs during the harsh Alaska winters, could be identified using laser technology, new research suggests. Remotely tracking dens using lidar, an advanced laser technology, can reveal 90 to 95 percent of the dens — a great improvement over past methods, a small pilot study shows. Knowing where the polar bears rear their young could help protect them from the dangers posed by oil and gas drilling, and could also reveal how the landscape shifts in response to climate change, according to the study, presented Friday (Dec. 13) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. "A lot of oil and gas exploration happens in the winter — that's when bears are in their dens, rearing their young," said study co-author Benjamin Jones, a research geographer with the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center.

Deepest Earthquakes May Be Best at Dissipating Energy

Scientists investigated a magnitude-8.3 earthquake that struck beneath the Sea of Okhotsk, between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula and Japan, on May 24. The Sea of Okhotsk rests above a subduction zone, a place where one of the Earth's tectonic plates slides beneath another. After investigating seismic waves observed during the earthquake in the Sea of Okhotsk, the researchers found the initial quake triggered four other powerful shocks, one of magnitude 7.8, one of magnitude 8.0 and two of magnitude 7.9. The scientists calculated that the pressure front from the initial earthquake sped outward at about 9,000 mph (14,400 kph), which set off three of the four shocks in a line south of the initial quake.

Antarctica may have a new type of ice - diamonds

By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - A kind of rock that often contains diamonds has been found in Antarctica for the first time, hinting at mineral riches in the vast, icy continent where mining is banned. "It would be very surprising if there weren't diamonds in these kimberlites," Greg Yaxley of the Australian National University in Canberra, who led the research, said in a telephone interview. Writing in the journal Nature Communications, an Australian-led team reported finding the kimberlite deposits around Mount Meredith, in the Prince Charles Mountains in East Antarctica. Kimberlite is a rare rock where diamonds are often found;

Trio of spacewalks planned to fix space station's cooling system

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Astronauts aboard the International Space Station will begin a series of spacewalks this weekend to repair the orbital outpost's cooling system, delaying a cargo resupply flight until January, NASA said on Tuesday. The six-member crew was not in any danger, NASA said. But by Tuesday afternoon, with the cooling system still down, the U.S. space agency decided to have two astronauts aboard the station replace the pump with a spare. Three spacewalks are planned to complete the work, the first of which is scheduled for Saturday by station flight engineers Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins.

Sparkling Discovery: Antarctica May Contain Diamonds

Antarctica might have a new kind of ice — diamonds might exist there, a new study finds, Diamonds form under the immense heat and pressure found nearly 100 miles (160 kilometers) below Earth's surface, in the planet's mantle layer, which is sandwiched between the outer crust and the core. Powerful volcanic eruptions bring these precious stones to Earth's surface, where they are embedded in blue-tinged rocks known as kimberlites. Kimberlites can range from 10,000 to 2.1 billion years in age, and can have the deepest sources of any rocks on Earth's surface.

Ancient Roman Metal Used for Physics Experiments Ignites Science Feud

Mountains Crumbled When Earth Cooled

A big chill 2 million years ago bred glaciers that scoured mountains across the planet, pouring trillions of tons of muck into the oceans, researchers said today (Dec. 18) in a study published in the journal Nature. "We really see the ability of climate to quite dramatically change erosion rates on the surface of the planet," said Frédéric Herman, a geologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. When Earth entered a global freeze-thaw cycle starting 6 million years ago, huge pulses of sand and mud started appearing in sediment cores drilled from seafloor — a possible sign that glaciers were suddenly grinding down continents. Researchers are also intrigued by the link between glaciations and a burst in erosion because atmospheric carbon dioxide rises and falls with the waxing and waning of the ice ages, especially starting about 2.7 million years ago.

Neanderthal Woman's Genome Reveals Unknown Human Lineage

The existence of a mysterious ancient human lineage and the genetic changes that separate modern humans from their closest extinct relatives are among the many secrets now revealed in the first high-quality genome sequence from a Neanderthal woman, researchers say. Although modern humans are the world's only surviving human lineage, others also once lived on Earth. These included Neanderthals, the closest extinct relatives of modern humans, and the relatively newfound Denisovans, whose genetic footprint apparently extended from Siberia to the Pacific islands of Oceania. Both Neanderthals and Denisovans descended from a group that diverged from the ancestors of all modern humans.

10 Scientists Who Made a Difference in 2013

Whether it was developing stem cells from cloned human embryos or tracking down assault claims at archaeological field sites, scientists and people advocating science had a busy 2013. To highlight some of these accomplishments, editors at the journal Nature selected 10 scientists and other people who they said made a difference in 2013. Certain kinds of bacteria can slash the DNA in viruses for protection, leading researchers — such as neuroscientist Feng Zhang, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — to wonder whether similar DNA-nip-and-cut techniques could have applications in humans. In January, Zhang co-authored a paper published in Science (led by one of his graduate students, Le Cong), showing that their alteration process works in higher-level eukaryotic cells, which are found in plants and animals.

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Delievered to you by Feedamail.
Unsubscribe