|  Obama agrees to 4-year extension for International Space Station  | By Irene Klotz WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration wants to keep the International Space Station, a $100 billion orbital research outpost that is a project of 15 nations, flying until at least 2024, four years beyond a previous target, NASA said on Wednesday. The extension will give the U.S. space agency more time to develop the technologies needed for eventual human missions to Mars, the long-term goal of NASA's human space program. NASA's costs for operating the station, which flies about 250 miles above Earth, run about $3 billion a year. "Ten years from today is a pretty far-reaching, pretty strategic-looking vision," NASA Associate Administrator Bill Gerstenmaier told reporters on a conference call.
| Read More » Ocean Microbes Shed Bizarre DNA-Carrying Blobs, Study Finds  | Tiny marine organisms that are thought to play a crucial role in the planet's carbon and nutrient cycles are mysteriously shedding massive amounts of bacterial "buds," loaded with proteins and genetic information, into the world's oceans, according to a new study. These so-called vesicles are spherical pouches containing DNA, carbon and nutrients that are being continually produced and released by Prochlorococcus, the most abundant type of cyanobacteria, which are miniscule photosynthesizing cells in the ocean that convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into oxygen and organic carbon. This puzzling discovery, reported online today (Jan. 9) in the journal Science, could lead to a new understanding of how carbon moves through the oceans, and possibly how genetic information is swapped between marine organisms, the researchers said. Prochlorococcusis dominant in all of the world's open oceans, except at high latitudes, where the water is very cold, said Steve Biller, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT in Cambridge, Mass., and lead author of the new study.
| Read More » Bacteria Help Sea Blobs Morph Into Tubeworm Adults  | Now, researchers have found the gelatinous larvae need a nudge from pointy bacterial structures to metamorphose. In recent years, scientists have found that many seafloor creatures — including some species of coral, sea urchins and tubeworms — require bacteria to go through metamorphosis. Now, researchers at the California Institute of Technology have taken a closer look at genes within a common mat-forming marine bacteria called Pseudoalteromonas luteoviolacea, which are thought to be responsible for metamorphosis in the tropical/subtropical tubeworm Hydroides elegans. The researchers discovered networks of strange structures produced by these genes that appear to be key to metamorphosis, the team reported today (Jan. 9) in the journal Science Express.
| Read More » Orbital Sciences' cargo ship blasts off for space station By Irene Klotz WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An unmanned Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket blasted off on Thursday to deliver the first of eight cargo ships to the International Space Station for NASA. The 13-story rocket lifted off its seaside launch pad on Wallops Island, Virginia, at 1:07 p.m. EST/1807 GMT, putting the Cygnus freighter on track for an early Sunday rendezvous with the station. "We're in good shape," Orbital Sciences Executive Vice President Frank Culbertson told reporters after launch. The launch, which was broadcast live on NASA Television, was delayed twice this week, first by cold weather and then by high space radiation due to a massive solar flare on Tuesday. Read More » Scientists: Americans are becoming weather wimps  | WASHINGTON (AP) — We've become weather wimps.
| Read More » 23andMe Test Reveals Disturbing Artificial Insemination Switch A young women conceived with help from a fertility clinic in Utah in the early 1990s is actually the biological daughter of the former clinic receptionist, genetic testing reveals. The University of Utah is offering free genetic testing to families who went to the Midvale, Utah, clinic during the late 1980s and early 1990s in the wake of these jaw-dropping revelations. The family discovered the truth about their daughter's parentage thanks to a direct-to-consumer genetic test by 23andMe, according to CeCe Moore, an independent genetic genealogist who first broke the story on her blog. Paula and her husband "Jeff" had used the private clinic Reproductive Medical Technologies, Inc. (RMTI) in Midvale to conceive their daughter "Ashley" in 1992. Read More » 'Kangaroo Care' May Have Lasting Benefits for Human Babies For babies born prematurely, being held in their parents' arms, directly against their skin, for a few hours per day is believed to enhance development. In the study, the researchers asked 73 mothers to give their babies skin-to-skin contact for one hour per day for two weeks.For comparison, the researchers also looked at 73 premature infants who only spent time in an incubator — the standard form of care for premature infants. Read More » Super-Earth Planets May Have Watery Earthlike Climates  | "The temperate climate on Earth is not just because of liquid water, but because of exposed continents," study researcher Nicolas Cowan of Northwestern University said here Tuesday (Jan. 7) at the 223rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society. A super-Earth with twice the radius of Earth would have 10 times the mass and 10 times the amount of water as Earth. The big planet's gravity would be three times as large as Earth's, squashing the planet's topography by a factor of three and creating shallow ocean basins, researchers said. Given so much water and a shallow place to contain it, conventional wisdom holds that a super-Earth's oceans should overflow their basins and inundate the exoplanet.
| Read More » Mars Rover Curiosity Spotted from Space (Photos)  | New photos by a sharp-eyed NASA Mars orbiter shows the space agency's Curiosity rover trundling across the Red Planet, on its way to the base of a huge and mysterious mountain. The 1-ton Curiosity rover and its tracks are visible in two new images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Dec. 11, 2013. "The rover is near the lower-left corner of this view," NASA officials wrote in a description of one of the photos, which was released today (Jan. 9). Another photo, meanwhile, shows the Curiosity rover's tracks as seen by the MRO spacecraft, but not the rover itself.
| Read More » Gov. Christie: 5 Modern Machiavellis New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie claimed in a news conference Thursday (Jan. 9), "I am not a bully," denying that he was involved in a series of massive traffic jams last year, orchestrated by his top aides to punish a political opponent who refused to give the governor an election-year endorsement. History will eventually determine just how much of a bully Christie is or is not, but history has already weighed in on the role that intimidation, retribution, favoritism and popular imagery play, all in the pages of Niccolò Machiavelli's "The Prince." That political tome, written by Machiavelli in the early 16th century, remains an oft-quoted classic that continues to inform policy discussions and government decision-making 500 years after it was written. "Christie's political strategy has been pure Machiavellian brilliance," wrote Brigid Callahan Harrison in The Record. Read More » Are You a 'Super Tech Adopter'? Or a 'Tech-Averse Older'? If you have Wi-Fi, a laptop and a DVD player in your home, but no smartphone, then you might be considered a "mature technophile." To coincide with the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, Gallup released a new analysis lumping American adults into four types of gadget owners: super tech adopters, smartphone reliants, mature technopiles and tech-averse olders. While 62 percent of Americans overall own a smartphone, 100 percent of super tech adopters have one. Another 19 percent of Americans are considered smartphone reliants. Read More » Ocean's Huge Hidden Waves Explained  | The biggest ocean waves in the world sweep through the South China Sea's Luzon Strait, towering more than 550 feet (170 meters) tall. "It's an important missing piece of the puzzle in climate modeling," said Thomas Peacock, a mechanical engineer at MIT who is studying internal waves. Now, a new modeling study reveals how the Luzon Strait's internal waves rise from the deep. The model shows that the spacing of two submerged seafloor ridges in the northern Luzon Strait is perfect for generating gigantic internal waves, Peacock and his colleagues reported Nov. 4 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
| Read More » Deep-Sea Expedition Could Reveal How Continents Form  | A deep-sea voyage to drill more than a mile below the ocean floor could solve one of Earth's long-standing mysteries: how continents form. The goal is to drill about 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) below the ocean floor, traveling more than 40 million years back in time to understand exactly how the beginnings of a continent underneath the volcanoes formed over time. Though the continents may seem commonplace, Earth is "the only planet known to civilization that has them," said James Gill, a geologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who is going on the expedition. Continents are made up of a thicker, lighter crust that sits above the denser, thinner oceanic crust.
| Read More » Octopus Arms, Human Tongues Intertwine for Science  | Octopus Arms, Human Tongues Intertwine for Science
| Read More » Tragic Cases: Technology Creates a New Way to Die Editor's Note: In this weekly series, LiveScience explores how technology drives scientific exploration and discovery. In Oakland, Calif., 13-year-old Jahi McMath was declared brain-dead Dec. 12 after complications from a tonsillectomy. Her family believes she is not dead and, after a legal battle, has found an undisclosed facility where she can remain on a ventilator. In Fort Worth, Texas, Marlise Munoz remains on a ventilator after being declared brain-dead on Nov. 26. Read More » 3D-Printed Hubble Telescope Photos Help Blind Touch the Universe (Video)  | WASHINGTON — The Hubble Space Telescope's gorgeous photos of the universe have acquired another dimension to help the blind experience the cosmos. Astronomers with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore are using a 3D printer to turn Hubble images into textured pictures, opening up the wonders of the universe to people who are visually impaired. Hubble scientists released a video detailing the 3D-printed universe project after unveiling effort at the annual American Astronomical Society meeting here on Tuesday (Jan. 7). "These 3D images make me feel great, because images of space objects were inaccessible and now all of a sudden they are accessible," Nijat Worley of Baltimore said late last year, at the National Federation of the Blind's state convention in Ocean City, Md. [See photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope]
| Read More » Congress Renames NASA Flight Center After Neil Armstrong  | Lawmakers have renamed NASA's primary flight research center to honor the first man to walk on the moon. The U.S. Senate on Wednesday (Jan. 8) passed a bill that redesignates the space agency's Dryden Flight Research Center in southern California the "NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center." The legislation continues to honor the facility's displaced namesake by renaming the surrounding area the "Hugh L. Dryden Aeronautical Test Range." [Photos: Neil Armstrong, an American Astronaut Icon] The U.S. House of Representatives earlier introduced and passed a corresponding resolution in February 2013.
| Read More » Will Wearable Tech Bring Humanity a 'Sixth Sense?'  | Wearable sensors are set to become a "sixth sense" for consumers, replacing subjective feelings about health and well-being with cold, hard data, experts explained at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas Thursday (Jan. 9). But more sophisticated tools that measure the electrical activity of the heart — as opposed to just the pulse, for example — could have their uses, said Dr. Ragavendra Baliga, associate director of Ohio State Medical Center's Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. The push for noninvasive, smartphone-connected monitoring falls into four areas, said CES panelist Chuck Parker, executive director of Continua Health Alliance, a nonprofit industry group that sets standards for sensor technology. Advocates hope that by using noninvasive, wearable monitors, patients will be able to stay at home while doctors keep a digital eye on their health.
| Read More » Babies Know What Makes a Friend  | "Nine-month-old infants are paying attention to other people's relationships," said study co-author Amanda Woodward, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago. "When they see events that are inconsistent or unexpected, they tend to look at them longer," she said.
| Read More » Venus Moves into the Morning Sky: How to See It  | If you were looking up just after sunset this week, you may have caught a glimpse of Venus setting just after the sun, weather permitting. But try it again at the same time next week, and Venus will be gone. On Saturday (Jan. 11), Venus will pass between Earth and the sun, an event scientists call an "inferior conjunction." A conjunction occurs when two celestial objects reach the same longitude and appear to line up. The last time we had an inferior conjunction of Venus and the sun was on June 6, 2012.
| Read More » The Imagine Engine at the Intersection of Science and Art (Op-Ed)  | Bill O'Brien is an actor-producer and Senior Adviser for Program Innovation for the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Producer of the Tony-honored Broadway revival of "Big River," O'Brien was a seven-year ensemble member of NBC's "The West Wing" (as Kenny, Marlee Matlin's sign language interpreter), has had featured roles on such programs as "Law and Order," "Providence" and "Gideon's Crossing," performed in stage productions throughout the United States, and composed the score for the independent film "Church." O'Brien contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious — the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science." — Albert Einstein Increasingly, artists and scientists are eager to explore creative practices emerging at the intersection of their two fields.
| Read More » Embrace Your Regrets in the New Year (Op-Ed) Amy Summerville is an assistant professor of psychology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Psychological scientists define regret as the negative emotion that results from thinking about how some past event might have been better if you personally had done something different. John Petrocelli of Wake Forest University and colleagues found that people tend to feel the most regret about things that they realize they really could have done differently or about things that would have had an impact on a given situation. Read More » Why Robots May Be the Future of Interplanetary Research (Op-Ed)  | Last month, India launched its Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) and NASA launched an orbiter called the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission (MAVEN). However, a rift has developed between those who want to spend increasingly scarce public space science dollars on "pure" planetary and astronomical research using telescopes like Kepler and robotic laboratories like Curiosity and MAVEN, and those who support human spaceflight.
| Read More » Build a Better Drone, for Wildlife Conservation (Op-Ed)  | David Wilkie is director of conservation support and Robert Rose is assistant director of conservation support, both at WCS. The authors contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. What if unmanned arial vehicle (UAV) developers could imagine their inventions through the eyes of conservation field staff? To combat this sophisticated and expanding traffic in wildlife, conservationists must themselves turn to new technologies if they are to shift the balance.
| Read More » The Meteoric Rise of Life?  | With the shock as a catalyst, the theory went, the organic (carbon-bearing) molecules present in the ice of comets — such as ammonia and methanol, a simple alcohol — could be transformed into amino acids, the crucial components of proteins, and therefore of life. To remedy the situation, a team of planetary scientists — led by Zita Martins of Imperial College London — set about re-creating an apocalypse in their lab.
| Read More » Let Nature Fill in the Details (Op-Ed)  | David Festa, vice president of the Land, Water, Wildlife Program at the Environmental Defense Fund, contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.?? It called the loss of Louisiana's coastal wetlands "the greatest environmental, economic and cultural tragedy on the North American continent." Since the 1930s, efforts to control the Mississippi River and widespread energy development in the Mississippi delta have resulted in the sacrifice of 1,900 square miles of Louisiana's coastal wetlands to the sea. Of course, the engineering projects on the Mississippi spurred over a century of economic development and navigation.
| Read More » With One Slip, a Hand Injury Could Ruin Your Winter Dr. Michael Ruff, is director of the Hand and Upper Extremity Center at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. He contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. All it takes is one wrong move and you could end up with a hand or wrist injury. At the Hand and Upper Extremity Center at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center we have four surgeons who treat all types of hand and wrist injuries. Read More » Monster Sunspot Dominates Sun Photos by Amateur Astronomers  | Amateur astronomers have safely captured amazing views of a colossal sunspot seven times the size of Earth that is currently making its way across the face of the sun.
| Read More » Superhydrophobic What? How Rust-Oleum NeverWet Works  | Nathan Ferraro and Joe Ferguson, chemists at Rust-Oleum's Research and Development Laboratory in Pleasant Prairie, Wis., contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. When a drop of liquid contacts a surface, it creates a "contact angle" — the angle formed between the edge of the drop and the surface it rests on. The higher the contact angle, the more likely a liquid will roll off a surface. A superhydrophobic surface repels water to an extreme degree — specifically, it has a contact angle with water of at least 150 degrees.
| Read More » Slowdown in Global Warming is Apparently a Mirage (Op-Ed)  | Ilissa Ocko, the High Meadows post-doctoral science fellow at Environmental Defense Fund, contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.?? While the planet's surface temperatures over the past century have risen to unprecedented levels, records have shown a slowdown in the pace of warming over the past 15 years. A new study, however, suggests that the slowdown itself may be a mirage — the result of temperature records that have considerably underestimated the pace of warming since 1997. The global coverage of temperature measurements is incomplete, and that can cause biases in temperature records — research datasets deal with those data gaps differently.
| Read More » A Side of Dolphin with Your Shrimp Cocktail (Op-Ed)  | Zak Smith is an attorney for the Marine Mammal Protection Project at NRDC. This Op-Ed is adapted from one that first appeared on the NRDC blog Switchboard. Smith contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Around the world, more than 650,000 whales, dolphins, sea lions and other marine mammals are killed or seriously injured every year after getting trapped, entangled, or hooked in commercial fishing gear.
| Read More » Seals Gain Global Protections, Despite Anthony Bourdain's Efforts (Op-Ed)  | This Op-Ed is adapted from several posts on the blog A Humane Nation, where the content ran before appearing in LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. As 2014 begins, there is encouraging news to report on efforts to protect seals. Because of Humane Society International (HSI)'s work to close markets for seal products, prices for seal fur in Canada have declined dramatically. As a result, in 2013 Canadian hunters fell shy of their allowable quota of seals by more than 300,000 individuals.
| Read More » In New York, the Age of Horse and Buggy Has Passed (Op-Ed) Wayne Pacelle is the president and chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). This Op-Ed is adapted from a post on the blog A Humane Nation, where the content ran before appearing in LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Mayor Bill de Blasio recently presented a plan to ban horse-drawn carriages, an action that has led to an outpouring of discussion about whether or not the carriages are a treasured tradition or a burden on the animals in service. The Humane Society of the United States supports the mayor's plan, and we call on the New York City Council to support his effort — and to reject the obstructionist tactics and phony arguments of the so-called Alliance for Truth. Read More » U.S., Canada sign agreement to share data on space debris (Reuters) - The United States and Canada have signed an agreement to share data on orbiting space debris, asteroids and other hazards to space flight, the U.S. military said on Friday. The agreement, signed on December 26 with Canada's Department of National Defence, permits an advanced exchange of data, the U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the American military's space operations, said in a statement. "We were pleased to finalize this data-sharing agreement with Canada, one of our closest allies. These agreements are mutually beneficial, provide for greater space flight safety and increase our national security," Admiral Cecil Haney, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said. Read More » Space-faring nations lay groundwork for human, robotic exploration By Irene Klotz WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Officials from 32 of the world's space-faring nations concluded a trio of summits on Friday to tackle expanding participation in the International Space Station and planning for eventual human expeditions to Mars. Fifteen nations collaborated to build the space station, a permanently staffed research complex that flies about 250 miles above Earth. On Wednesday, the Obama Administration announced its intent to extend station operations to at least 2024, four years beyond when it was slated to be removed from orbit. "We're very happy to hear about extension," Xu Dazhe, administrator of the China National Space Administration, said Friday at the International Academy of Astronautics conference, one of three global space summits hosted in Washington this week. Read More » Virgin Galactic spaceship makes third powered test flight  | Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger, two-pilot spacecraft aiming to make the world's first commercial suborbital spaceflights later this year, conducted its third rocket-powered test flight on Friday. With Virgin Galactic chief pilot David Mackay and co-pilot Mark Stucky at the controls, SpaceShipTwo soared to an altitude 71,000 feet above ground - about twice as high as commercial jetliners, Virgin Galactic said on Twitter. It was the third powered test flight for SpaceShipTwo, which was designed and built by Mojave, Calif.-based Scaled Composites, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corp. "She flew brilliantly," Mackay said in a statement from Virgin Galactic after landing.
| Read More » Most (and Least) Stressful Jobs for 2014 While all jobs come with their own level of stress, new research shows some have it more than others. Read More » 10 Big Companies That Will Let You Work From Home Job seekers who want to join the remote workforce may want to start looking for positions in the health care or information technology industries, new data shows. A study by FlexJobs — an online service for professionals seeking telecommuting, flexible-schedule, part-time and freelance jobs — revealed that some industries are much more flexible than others. In addition to health care and IT, education, nonprofit and philanthropy, and sales and marketing all offer the type of flexibility many job seekers want. Specifically, job titles like sales representative, senior analyst, nurse case manager, account executive, Web or software developer, accountant and virtual teacher are some of the most commonly found remote positions. Read More » The Weirdest Gadgets of CES 2014  | If you're a gadget junkie with a sweet tooth, then 3D Systems Corporation may have just the product for you. The company is launching its ChefJet 3D Printer, a kitchen-ready countertop device that can print sugary treats in all sorts of fun, 3D geometrical shapes.
| Read More » 'Lost' Remains of Martyred Georgian Queen Unearthed  | The remains of a woman kept in an Indian church likely belong to an ancient queen executed about 400 years ago, a new DNA analysis suggests. The DNA analysis suggests the remains are those of Queen Ketevan, an ancient Georgian queen who was executed for refusing to become a member of a powerful Persian ruler's harem. Ketevan was the Queen of Kakheti, a kingdom in Georgia, in the 1600s. After her husband the king was killed, the Persian Ruler, Shah Abbas I, besieged the kingdom.
| Read More » 10 Years on Mars: Smithsonian Exhibit Celebrates NASA's Spirit and Opportunity Rovers  | A new museum exhibit highlights the accomplishments of two venerable NASA Mars rovers, just in time for the 10-year anniversary of the robots' arrival on the Red Planet. "Spirit and Opportunity: 10 Years Roving Across Mars" opened Thursday (Jan. 9) at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The exhibition features photos taken by Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on opposite sides of the Red Planet in January 2004 to search for signs of past water activity. "This set of spectacular images captures the beauty of Mars while telling the amazing stories of Spirit and Opportunity as they explored water-related deposits," John Grant, supervisory geologist in the museum's Center for Earth and Planetary Studies and chair of the rover mission's science operations working group, said in a statement. The golf-cart-size Spirit touched down on the night of Jan. 3, 2004 (Jan. 4 GMT), followed three weeks later by its twin, Opportunity.
| Read More » Searching for Time Travelers, Scientists Look to Social Media Time travelers, if they exist amongst us, have yet to betray their period-hopping ways online, according to a fun, new study aimed at finding visitors from another time, based on their digital footprints. Even so, over a summer poker game, Robert Nemiroff, an astrophysicist at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, sparked an amusing discussion with his students by asking: If time travelers were living in our midst, would they leave traces of their presence online? The researchers chose two recent events — the March 2013 election of Pope Francis to lead the Catholic Church, and the sungrazing Comet ISON, which was first spotted in September 2012 — to search for premature online references to time travelers. Perhaps careless time travelers made mention of Pope Francis or Comet ISON on Twitter or Facebook before they were supposed to know about them, the researchers said. Read More » Mock Mars Mission: Eating On The Red Planet  | That was a problem I faced early in my rotation at Utah's Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) when another crewmember and I were put on food duty. Since the role of MDRS is to simulate Mars exploration and make us feel like astronauts, we're encouraged to solve problems ourselves. There's a lot to learn as we keep ourselves fed at this facility, which is run by the nonprofit Mars Society. On our last stop before "Mars," the six members of MDRS Crew 133 wandered a Walmart in Grand Junction, Col. Most of us were on the hunt for our favorite junk food.
| Read More » Ant Farm Hitches Rocket Ride to Space Station (Video)  | Just call them "ant-ronauts." A private robotic spacecraft that launched to the International Space Station Thursday (Jan. 9) may have been unmanned, but it was packed with about 800 living six-legged spaceflyers hoping to set up a colony in orbit. As part of a student experiment, eight ant farms hitched a ride to the orbiting lab alongside the food, supplies and other gear being delivered to the astronauts. The space ants launched into orbit aboard an Orbital Sciences Cygnus spacecraft that will arrive at the space station early Sunday (Jan. 12). Scientists and students alike will be looking at how the insects' movement behavior changes in a microgravity environment, Tara Ruttley, a NASA associate International Space Station program scientist, said in video describing the ant farm in space.
| Read More » LinkedIn's Top 25 Most In-Demand Career Skills Job seekers should find a way to highlight their technological skills in the new year, according to a new study: New research from LinkedIn revealed that 20 of the top 25 skills most in demand by employers in 2013 involved technology. After analyzing the skills and employment history of its 259 million members, LinkedIn discovered that social media marketing, mobile development, and cloud and distributed computing topped this year's hottest skills of 2013. LinkedIn developed its rankings after examining LinkedIn profiles and grouping users' skills into meaningful categories. Researchers then looked at all of the hiring and recruiting activity that happened on LinkedIn in the past year and determined which skill categories drew the most interest from employers in 2013. Read More » Why Your Social Media Profile Is the New Resume When was the last time you updated your résumé? If it was less than a year ago, you're in the minority: According to recent research by recruitment firm HiringSolved, just a quarter of Americans refresh their résumé more than once a year, and nearly 40 percent say they never update it. "Gone are the days of feverishly updating your résumé and applying to job after job," said Shon Burton, CEO of HiringSolved. Read More » 'No Pants Subway Ride': Sure It's Fun, But Is It Healthy? Given the stereotype of public transportation as teeming with germs, could showing some extra skin on the subway increase a person's risk of catching an infectious disease? "It depends what they do there on the subway without their pants on," said Dr. Aaron Glatt, an infectious diseases specialist and president of St. Joseph Hospital in Bethpage, N.Y. "If they're just sitting on the subway, then it's not a problem." In other words, you'd likely have the same risk of catching something on a given subway ride, regardless of whether you had your pants on or not. Read More » Orbital Sciences cargo ship arrives at space station  | By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Orbital Sciences Corp, one of two companies hired by U.S. space agency NASA to make supply runs to the International Space Station, delivered its first cargo ship on Sunday, a NASA TV broadcast showed. Space station flight engineer Mike Hopkins used the outpost's 60-foot-long (18 meter) robotic arm to pluck a Cygnus freighter capsule from orbit at 6:08 a.m. EST as the two ships sailed 264 miles over the Indian Ocean, northeast of Madagascar. "A big sigh of relief for Orbital," said astronaut and NASA TV commentator Catherine "Cady" Coleman from Mission Control in Houston. About two hours later, Hopkins latched the capsule, which is about the size of a small bus, to a docking port on the space station's Harmony module.
| Read More » 'Invisibility' Materials Could Do Computer's Work  | The materials that make Harry Potter's invisibility cloak a real scientific possibility could also be used to perform advanced mathematical calculations usually done by computers, new research suggests. An international team of researchers now proposes that so-called metamaterials, which can alter the properties of light waves often to render an object invisible, could perform mathematical operations as well. While they haven't built an actual device yet, their work shows the mathematical basis for the technology, which could dramatically speed up calculations such as those used in image processing. Until now, most research in this area had focused on using metamaterials to bend light around objects, to make them invisible at certain wavelengths.
| Read More » Private Cargo Ship Delivers Gifts, Ants to Space Station Crew  | A privately launched cargo ship packed with late Christmas presents and space-traveling ants linked up with the International Space Station on Sunday (Jan. 12) in a milestone delivery mission for the astronauts onboard. Space station astronauts used a robotic arm to capture the unmanned Cygnus spacecraft early Sunday morning and attach it an open docking port as both spacecraft sailed 260 miles (418 kilometers) above Earth. The special delivery comes courtesy of the Dulles, Va.-company Orbital Sciences Corporation, which launched the Cygnus spacecraft on Thursday (Jan. 9) to make its first commercial resupply mission to the station for NASA. The Cygnus spacecraft is carrying 2,780 lbs. (1,260 kilograms) of gear for the space station crew, including fresh fruit and Christmas gifts.
| Read More » Super-Sized Sandbox Reveals How Dunes Grow  | On a cold winter day in December 2007, a bulldozer flattened nearly 40 acres (16 hectares) of Inner Mongolia's Tengger Desert. It was the start of a unique experiment: For the first time, scientists would watch Earth's winds give birth to dunes. Under the influence of the desert's seasonally varying wind patterns, which blow from the southeast and the west, the dunes grew at an angle of about 50 degrees to the overall wind direction. The dunes' alignment initially shifted back and forth with the changing winds, eventually converging to an average between the two wind patterns, the researchers found.
| Read More » Ultrasound May Boost Brain Performance  | Ultrasound may improve sensory perception, according to a new study in humans. By directing ultrasound to a specific brain area, researchers were able to improve people's ability to discriminate between sensory inputs. Ultrasound is sound far above the upper limit of what humans can hear. Doctors and technicians send bursts of ultrasound through tissue and record the echoes, creating a picture of what's inside — whether it's an injured knee or a fetus in utero.
| Read More » Volcano Ground-Warping Could Predict Ash Plume Height  | The way a volcano warps the ground might predict how high an eruption's ash plume will get, which in turn might help scientists gauge the impact the explosion could have before it happens, researchers say in a new study. Scientists analyzed Grímsvötn for the study,, a volcano near the middle of the Vatnajökull ice cap on the volcanically active island of Iceland. "Grímsvötn volcano is Iceland's most frequently erupting volcano," said study lead author Sigrún Hreinsdóttir, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. They compared this data with the height of the eruption plume over time, using radar data and photographs taken during the eruption.
| Read More » Cold Outside? Forecast Calls for an Uptick in Global Warming Disbelief The temperature outside governs most people's response to climate change. David Biello reports Read More » Ocean Acidification May Slow Hopping Sea Snails  | Jumping sea snails may become sluggish due to ocean acidification, as lower pH levels disrupt their ability to flee predators, a new study finds. Some species of conch snails depend on a strong foot to hop away from predators, such as the cone shell, which attacks its prey with a venomous, dartlike tooth.
| Read More » Meet the Castle-Raiding 'Pillage Ant'  | A new species of ant that raids the acorn castles of other insects and captures them as slaves has been discovered on the forest floors of the northeastern United States. Aptly nicknamed the "pillage ant," the creature is formally called Temnothorax pilagens, which draws on the Latin word "pilere" (to pluck, plunder or pillage).
| Read More » Hubble Telescope Captures Spectacular Views of Spidery Tarantula Nebula (Photos)  | WASHINGTON — New views from the Hubble Space Telescope are revealing the spooky-looking Tarantula Nebula in never-before-seen detail. The prolific Hubble Space Telescope produced the image, which shows multicolored clouds of gas and dust glowing with stars sprinkled throughout the image. Hubble officials previously released images of the spidery nebula, however, this is the deepest view of the intriguing cosmic region full of star clusters yet. "The image is dominated by gas and dust, but I can assure you that there are more than 800,000 stars living in this region," Elena Sabbi, of the Space Telescope Science Institute, said as she unveiled the new image here at the 223rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
| Read More » Will Commercial Space Travel Blast Off in 2014?  | The longed-for dawn of private manned space travel appears near at hand. Virgin Galactic's suborbital SpaceShipTwo, for example, aced its third supersonic test flight on Friday (Jan. 10), and company officials say they remain on track to begin commercial service later this year. Virgin Galactic's efforts to create the world's first commercial spaceline have gained a lot of steam lately. "For Galactic, 2014 is the year that we plan to go to space, and start operating commercially," said Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides.
| Read More » Violence Accounts for 10% of School Injuries Violence may account for about 10 percent of the injuries U.S. children receive at school, according to a new study that looked at the causes of children's visits to hospital emergency rooms. Read More » Quick Pen-and-Paper Test Can Spot Signs of Dementia Results of a pen-and-paper test can alert older adults to a need to be evaluated for dementia, according to a new study. The self-administered test, which requires about 10 to 15 minutes to complete, is designed to be a quick screening tool for dementia that can be taken in virtually any setting, including at home or at community events. In the new study, about 1,000 people ages 50 and older took the test at community events such as health fairs, and 28 percent were identified as having cognitive problems. The researchers stressed that the test cannot diagnose dementia or Alzheimer's disease, but rather is intended to start a conversation between patients and their doctors. Read More » Fossils of Ancient Australasian Trees Found in Patagonia  | In Patagonia, at the southern end of South America, scientists have discovered 52.2-million-year-old fossils of a giant evergreen tree that now is only found thousands of miles away in Australia and Asia. Coniferous trees in the genus Agathis, which are sought after for their soft wood, have thick trunks and can grow up to 200 feet (60 meters) tall. "These spectacular fossils reveal that Agathis is old and had a huge range that no one knew about — from Australia to South America across Antarctica," Peter Wilf, a professor of geoscience at Penn State, said in a statement. The new fossils date back to a time when the landmasses of Australia, Antarctica, South America and Africa were joined in the southern supercontinent Gondwana.
| Read More » Humans Use Sound Cues to Read Dog's Emotions  | Now, scientists find people use the same general rules to recognize doggy emotions as they do for fellow humans. By comparing how people perceive human and dog vocalizations, researchers found that people linked positive or negative emotions with the length of a vocalization, and the emotional intensity with a sound's pitch. Emotional vocalizations are quite similar across different species, and may carry the same information about an animal's inner state as about a human's. [Top 10 Things that Make Humans Special] "We are curious how dogs communicate their inner state, and in what extent are humans able to understand this," said study team member Tamás Faragó, who studies animal behavior at Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary.
| Read More » Why Weather Affects Climate Change Belief When frigid temperatures set much of the country shivering last week, pundits took the opportunity to scoff at the concept of climate change. But the weather-related denial of global warming is a pernicious pattern that troubles climate scientists: When the weather is hot, the public believes more in climate change. "It's striking that society has spent so much time and effort educating people about this issue, yet people's beliefs can shift so easily," said Lisa Zaval, a graduate student in psychology at Columbia University in New York. According to an April 2013 poll by Gallup, 58 percent of Americans worry a fair or great deal about climate change, and 57 percent say they believe climate change is caused by human activities. Read More » Strange Ancient Fish Had Front And Back Legs  | These findings reveal that a key step in the evolution of hind limbs happened in fish, challenging previous theories that such appendages evolved only after the move to land. However, it also had features seen in modern tetrapods — four-limbed creatures like amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals — such as a mobile neck and robust ribcage. Prior analyses of other fossils dating from the water-land transition found their back appendages were small and weak compared with their front appendages.
| Read More » Pleiades Star Cluster Sparkles in Amazing Stargazer Photo  | The Pleiades star cluster dazzles brilliantly in this deep-exposure, widefield photo recently sent in to SPACE.com by a veteran astrophotographer.
| Read More » Udder Nonsense? Cow Urine Promoted for Health Benefits Though it may never move into the mainstream, an alternative medicine promoted by a Hindu group in India is getting some attention: cow urine as a treatment for numerous diseases, including cancer, diabetes and tuberculosis. "Cow urine offers a cure for around 70 to 80 incurable diseases like diabetes," Om Prakash, of the RSS Cow Protection Department, told Reuters. "All are curable by cow urine." [7 Medical Myths Even Doctors Believe] Read More » Getting Others Mad May Be a Winning Strategy In fact, anger can sometimes help people win, new research suggests. "You shouldn't look at emotions as something irrational," said study researcher Uri Gneezy, a behavioral economist at the University of California, San Diego. In the new study, published today (Jan. 13) in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Gneezy and his colleagues give a world-famous example of the power and peril of anger. During the 2006 World Cup soccer match, French player Zinedine Zidane got into a typical trash-talking altercation with Italian player Marco Materazzi. Read More » Does Having Children Make People Happier? It looks like it's a draw: People with children in the home are about as satisfied with their lives as those who don't have kids at home, a new study suggests. "People who have children, by and large, want children," Deaton told LiveScience. "People who don't want children are people who, by and large, don't want to have children. And still other work has found that children put a damper on marital satisfaction. Read More » Teen Brains Really Are Wired to Seek Rewards When teens receive money, or anticipate receiving it, their brains' pleasure center lights up more than it does in adults. The reason is not that teenagers value money more than adults, but more likely because teenage brains haven't finished maturing, researchers say. Galván, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, leader of the study detailed online today (Jan. 13) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A significant amount of brain development happens during the teenage years. Read More » Probiotics May Help Prevent Infant Gut Disorders Providing probiotics, or "good bacteria," to healthy infants shortly after they're born may reduce the development of gastrointestinal disorders and prolonged crying episodes later in life, a new study from Italy suggests. In the study, newborns that received a daily dose of the probiotic Lactobacillus reuteri had fewer episodes of inconsolable crying (colic), constipation and regurgitation (reflux) at age three months compared to newborns given a placebo. Use of probiotics also had benefits in terms of reducing health care expenses, such as money spent on emergency department visits, or money lost when parents took time off work. On average, families with infants that took probiotics saved about $119 per child, the researchers said. Read More » Weird Full Moon Names of 2014 Explained  | The first full moon of 2014 rises this week, but despite being the first of the year, it has the surprising name "Old Moon" for some cultures, but it's not the only lunar nickname for the event. Those tribes of a few hundred years ago kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full moon. Here is a listing of all of the full moon names, as well as the dates and times for 2014. Jan. 15, 11:52 p.m. EST: Full Wolf Moon —Amid the zero cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages.
| Read More » Night Launch of 3 Military Rockets Tuesday Visible Along US East Coast  | The U.S. military will launch three rockets from Virginia early Tuesday (Jan. 14) in back-to-back-to-back liftoffs that could be visible to observers in the mid-Atlantic region, weather permitting.
| Read More » Launch of 3 Military Rockets Tonight Visible Along US East Coast  | The U.S. military will launch three rockets from Virginia early Tuesday (Jan. 14) in back-to-back-to-back liftoffs that could be visible to observers in the mid-Atlantic region, weather permitting.
| Read More » Smallest, Faintest Galaxies of the Ancient Universe Spotted  | The Hubble Space Telescope utilized a natural zoom lens to capture nearly 60 of the smallest, faintest galaxies ever spotted in the distant universe. In a separate study, observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope helped researchers determine the masses of four of the brightest early galaxies after Hubble picked them out. Both results could be followed up by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, an $8.8 billion observatory slated to be launched in late 2018, officials said. Deep exposures by Hubble captured images of the smallest, faintest, and most numerous galaxies ever seen in the distant universe as part of a three-year survey known as Frontier Fields.
| Read More » US Navy's Huge Triton Drone Will Provide 360-Degree Surveillance  | The U.S. Navy's next-generation surveillance drone is a whopper, with an incredible wingspan that stretches 130 feet (40 meters), about the same as a Boeing 757 airliner. The drone, dubbed Triton, recently completed its ninth flight test earlier this month. The unmanned surveillance vehicle, built by defense giant Northrop Grumman Corporation, is midway through a process known as "envelope expansion," which involves conducting a series of tests to validate the aircraft's ability to perform at different altitudes, speeds and under different weight scenarios. "Completion of envelope expansion will allow the test team to prepare for installation and further testing of Triton's surveillance sensors," Mike Mackey, Northrop Grumman's Triton program director, said in a statement.
| Read More » Ancient People Fought Demons and Disasters with Eggs  | Residents of Sardis, an ancient city in modern-day Turkey, spent decades rebuilding after a devastating earthquake struck one night in the year A.D. 17. To ward off demons and future disasters, some locals may have sealed eggshells under their new floors as lucky charms, archaeologists found. In the summer of 2013 archaeologists were excavating an ancient building at Sardis that was constructed after the earthquake. The objects in the odd assemblages were important in ancient rituals to keep evil forces at bay, and the archaeologists who found them believe they could be rare examples of how the earthquake affected ancient people on a personal level.
| Read More » Visiting a Rough Neighborhood Alters the Psyche The neighborhood a person lives in can influence their likelihood of depression, feelings of trust and even their chances of becoming a criminal. Now, a study suggests the environment is even more powerful than believed: Even a 45-minute visit can influence people's levels of trust and paranoia. Students who visited a poor, crime-ridden neighborhood only briefly exhibited less trust and more paranoia than students bussed temporarily to a well-off community, according to new research published today (Jan. 14) in the open-access journal PeerJ. "What really surprised us is that the visitors, they looked [psychologically] just like the people in the place they visited," said study researcher Daniel Nettle, a professor of behavioral science at Newcastle University. Read More » Manned Mission to Mars By 2030s Is Really Possible, Experts Say  | A workshop group of more than 60 individuals representing more than 30 government, industry, academic and other organizations has found that a NASA-led manned mission to Mars is feasible if the space agency's budget is restored to pre-sequestration levels. Putting the first humans on the Red Planet would also require international cooperation and private industry support. There is a growing consensus among the space community that a manned mission to Mars should be a priority worth working toward in the coming years, according to Chris Carberry the executive director of Explore Mars Inc., the organization that hosted the workshop with the American Astronautical Society. "To be able to make it feasible and affordable, you need a sustainable budget," Carberry told SPACE.com.
| Read More » X-Ray Reveals Hundreds of Gold Needles in Woman's Knees When doctors examined an X-ray image of the knees of a woman experiencing severe joint pain, they found a gold mine: hundreds of tiny gold acupuncture needles left in her tissue. But when pain relievers and anti-inflammatory drugs didn't alleviate the pain in her knees and only caused stomach discomfort, she had turned to acupuncture, the doctors wrote last week in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the woman's acupuncture treatment, the needles, which were presumably made of gold, were intentionally left in her tissue for continued stimulation, according to the report. However, leaving the needles, or any objects, in the body may not be such a good idea, said Dr. Ali Guermazi, a professor of radiology at Boston University, who wasn't involved with the case. Read More » Mock Mars Mission: Taking a 'Marswalk' on an Ancient Ocean Floor  | I leaned heavily on the help of fellow Crew 133 members Gordon Gartrelle, Matthieu Komorowski and Joseph Jessup — sometimes literally, as one of the experienced hikers would extend a hand to help me up or down a steep slope. Have a burning question about the mission or a picture you really would like to see from the site?
| Read More » Mirror to the Sky: Star Trails Reflect Off 'MAGIC' Telescope (Photo)  | Night sky photographer Miguel Claro submitted this magnificent photo of the glowing trails, which can also be seen reflected off the massive foreground structure of the MAGIC I telescope, which comprises 270 individual mirror panels that can be independently focused using an active mirror control system equipped with lasers. Star trails in a night sky image can be created with long exposure times. Star trail images such as this one show how Earth's rotation can influence the motion. To see more amazing night sky photos submitted by SPACE.com readers, visit our astrophotography archive.
| Read More » Rotavirus Vaccine Linked to Serious Intestinal Disorder in Infants Infants who receive the rotavirus vaccine, which protects against a severe diarrheal disease, may have a very small risk of developing a serious intestinal disorder called intussusception, a new study finds. In the study, researchers examined information collected from the administration of 1.2 million doses of RotaTeq, the most common rotavirus vaccine used in the United States, and more than 100,000 doses of Rotarix, another rotavirus vaccine licensed for use in the U.S. (The rotavirus vaccination is given as a two- or three-shot series to infants ages 2 to 6 months.) [5 Dangerous Vaccination Myths] The researchers found that during the three weeks after vaccination, the RotaTeq vaccine was linked with about 15 extra cases of intussusception per 1 million vaccinated infants, or one case per 65,000 doses given, the study found. There were not enough infants vaccinated with Rotarix to adequately determine whether that vaccine was linked with an increased risk of intussusception. Read More » Epic Undersea Battle Caught on Video  | Thanks to its sharp beak, a small red squid emerged victorious after an epic hour-long battle with a much bigger owlfish, all caught on video last November in Monterey Bay, Calif. The black-eyed squid paralyzed the owlfish by cutting through the fish's backbone, according to Bruce Robinson, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Robinson narrates a video of the fight between invertebrate and vertebrate, captured by MBARI's remotely operate vehicle Doc Ricketts on Nov. 11, 2013. The Doc Ricketts discovered the struggling marine creatures at about 1,475 feet (450 meters) below Monterey Bay as the vehicle was rising toward the surface, said Susan von Thun, an MBARI senior research technician.
| Read More » Continents on Alien Worlds Could Hint at Extraterrestrial Life  | If not for life, Earth may not have possessed the continents it does now, instead becoming a planet covered nearly entirely in ocean, researchers say. Earth is currently the only known planet in the universe that has liquid water on its surface. There is life virtually wherever there is liquid water on Earth, so one main focus of the search for extraterrestrial life as we know it is the region around a star where it is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on a planet, an area known as the star's habitable zone. Although water covers most of Earth's surface, nearly 30 percent of the planet is covered by land, sustaining a dazzling variety of life.
| Read More » Hubble Telescope Sees Star That May Explode Soon (Photo)  | The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a striking new photo of a doomed star poised to explode in a devastating supernova event. The Hubble photo of the star, known as SBW2007 1 (or SBW1 for short) reveals the star surrounded by its own expelled gas to create what appears to be a "lidless purple eye, staring back at us through space," NASA officials wrote in an image description. "The star was originally 20 times more massive than our sun, and is now encased in a swirling ring of purple gas, the remains of the distant era when it cast off its outer layers via violent pulsations and winds,." NASA officials wrote. Scientists suspect SBW1 will ultimately die violently as a supernova because of its close resemblance to the famed supernova SN 1987A, a star that exploded in 1987.
| Read More » Elves (Yes, Elves) Spark Road-Building Protest in Iceland Over the past few months, dozens of environmentalists in Iceland have staged a high-profile protest against a road scheduled to cut through an area of volcanic rock on the Álftanes peninsula, not far from the capital of Reykjavik. It is only one of countless eco-protests in the world, but the campaign has made international news, because some of the protesters claim the proposed road would disturb the habitat of elves who live among the rocks. Elves and fairies are closely related in folklore, and though elves specifically seem to have sprung from early Norse mythology, by the 1800s fairies and elves were widely considered to be simply different names for the same magical creatures. Polls find that over half of Iceland's population believes in elves, or at least doesn't rule out the possibility of their existence. Read More » 10 Best US Cities for Job Seekers Job seekers may have the best luck in landing a new position in the Lone Star State, new research shows. A study by the finance site NerdWallet.com revealed that Texas has three of the best U.S. cities for job seekers. Austin, which tops the list — as well as Fort Worth and San Antonio — were among the top 10 most attractive cities for those looking for work. Based on those factors, here are the 10 best U.S. cities for job seekers: Read More » Darwin Was Right: Island Animals Are Tamer  | Humans are not the only animals that can be calmed by the solitude of island life: Island-dwelling lizards are less skittish around humans and other potential predators than their mainland counterparts are, a new study shows. "For example, if food is scarce on islands, the cost of leaving food to flee would favor shortened flight initiation distance."
| Read More » Mock Mars Mission: Learning New Skills for Red Planet Living  | After a week here at the Mars Desert Research Station simulating Red Planet exploration, however, I've learned that it takes only one ingredient to slow things down: novelty. One day, several of us took turns quoting lines from the movie "Fargo." We also recount fun stories from the field, like the time a crewmember fell down in the mud in a spacesuit and despite paddling on all fours, couldn't get up without help. Just before I entered the "Hab," at the Mars Desert Research Station, which is run by the nonprofit Mars Society, somebody asked me if I was scared to spend two weeks locked in a 1,200-square-foot (111 square meters) facility with five strangers.
| Read More » Doomsday Clock Set at 5 'Til Midnight  | The iconic Doomsday Clock remains poised at five minutes until midnight, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced today (Jan. 14). The clock is no doomsday device — rather, it's a visual metaphor for the danger of a "civilization-threatening technological catastrophe." Every year, the board analyzes international threats, particularly nuclear arsenals and climate change, and decides where the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock should rest. The Doomsday Clock is the invention of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a publication started by some of the researchers who worked on the atomic bomb. The wife of one of these researchers, Martyl Langsdorf, was a painter.
| Read More » Nuclear Attack Aftermath: Make Haste to a Fallout Shelter  | People living within about 20 miles (32 kilometers) of a small-scale nuclear attack have up to half an hour to seek out adequate shelter safely, as long as travel time to that shelter is no more than 15 minutes away, according to a recent report on the optimal escape strategies for small-scale nuclear explosions.
| Read More » Secret to 'Gravity-Defying' Beads Revealed  | A chain of beads can defy gravity, acting like water spouting from a fountain, and now physicists reveal the secret behind this odd phenomenon.
| Read More » Tiny Robot Flies Like a Jellyfish  | A new teeny-tiny robot flies through the air like a jellyfish swims. That talent could make it handy for maneuvering in small spaces, said its inventor Leif Ristroph, a postdoctoral researcher at New York University. "What's cool is you can actually build these flying things yourself," Ristroph told LiveScience.
| Read More » Australian scientists microchip bees to map movements, halt diseases By Thuy Ong SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian scientists are gluing tiny sensors onto thousands of honey bees to track their movements in a trial aimed at halting the spread of diseases that have wiped out populations in the northern hemisphere. Scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency, said the microchips could help tackle so-called colony collapse disorder, a situation where bees mysteriously disappear from hives, and the encroachment of the parasitic varroa mite. Scientists will examine the effectiveness of pesticides in protecting the bees from colony collapse disorder and varroa mite. The study will also enable farmers and fruit growers to understand and manage their crops, given the honey bee's crucial role in the pollination of crops globally, the CSIRO said in a statement issued on Wednesday. Read More » Australian scientists microchip bees to map movements, halt diseases By Thuy Ong SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian scientists are gluing tiny sensors onto thousands of honey bees to track their movements in a trial aimed at halting the spread of diseases that have wiped out populations in the northern hemisphere. Scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency, said the microchips could help tackle so-called colony collapse disorder, a situation where bees mysteriously disappear from hives, and the encroachment of the parasitic varroa mite. ... Read More » Oldest Hippo in US Dies  | The oldest Nile hippopotamus in North America has died at age 59 at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.
| Read More » National Zoo's Panda Bao Bao Readies for Big Debut  | The nearly 5-month-old giant panda cub Bao Bao at the Smithsonian's National Zoo will make her public debut in a few days. Those with a "Friends of the National Zoo" membership have exclusive access to the panda habitat in Washington, D.C., this week, but the general public will finally get to lay their eyes on Bao Bao on Saturday (Jan. 18). The darling of panda cam fans, Bao Bao was born to 15-year-old panda mom Mei Xiang (may-SHONG) on Aug. 23, 2013. Like many pandas born in captivity today, Bao Bao, whose name means "precious" or "treasure," was conceived artificially.
| Read More » Ancient Nordic Grog Intoxicated the Elite  | Ancient Scandinavians quaffed an alcoholic mixture of barley, honey, cranberries, herbs and even grape wine imported from Greece and Rome, new research finds. This Nordic "grog" predates the Vikings. It was found buried in tombs alongside warriors and priestesses, and is now available at liquor stores across the United States, thanks to a reconstruction effort by Patrick McGovern, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and Delaware-based Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. "You'd think, with all these different ingredients, it sort of makes your stomach churn," McGovern, the study's lead author, told LiveScience.
| Read More » Crazy! Spider Launches Slingshot Web to Snag Prey (Video)  | A new video has captured the remarkable tactic a tiny spider uses to catch insects: It uses its web as a slingshot to fling itself and the web at unsuspecting prey. Georgia Institute of Technology graduate student Troy Alexander first noticed the unusual spider acrobatics at the Tambopata Research Center, an Amazon jungle lodge in Peru. The team thinks the particular spider may be the species Naatlo splendida but needs to collect specimens to be sure, Phil Torres, a Rice University ecology graduate student who has documented the spider's behavior, wrote in an email. "The web goes flying, and so does Mr. Spider," said Jeff Cremer, the photographer who captured the spider's daredevil move.
| Read More » Epic Antarctic Ice-Shelf Collapse Caused by Chain Reaction  | The mysterious disintegration of a giant Antarctic ice shelf that had been stable for millennia was caused by a chain reaction of lakes draining on top of the ice, researchers say. This finding suggests that other ice shelves could be vulnerable to such abrupt collapses, the researchers said. The ice shelf (the tongue of a glacier that floats on the ocean) had been stable for thousands of years but crumbled into thousands of icebergs over the course of just a few days. Before the ice shelf fell apart, more than 2,750 lakes existed on top of it.
| Read More » Mock Mars Mission: A Real Birthday Party On a Simulated Red Planet  | HANKSVILLE, Utah — As I ascended the stairs to the second floor of Utah's Mars Desert Research Station, something struck me as strange: the lights were off and the crew was quiet at what was usually a busy time — 5 p.m. Have a burning question about the mission or a picture you really would like to see from the site?
| Read More » Sun Stars in Solar Max Webcast Today: Watch It Live  | The active sun will take center stage in a live webcast from the online Slooh Space Camera today (Jan. 15). The sun is currently in the active phase of its 11-year solar cycle, known as Solar Cycle 24. However, the sun has been a bit more active in recent weeks due to a huge sunspot — called AR 1944 — that appeared earlier this year. Slooh will broadcast live views of the sun accompanied by expert commentary detailing the sun's uptick in activity.
| Read More » For Kids with Autism, Sights and Sounds Are Disjoined The world for children with autism may resemble watching a movie with the audio out of sync. The new study showed that in children with autism, the time window for binding signals together is wider, meaning that the brain integrates events that happened as much as half a second (500 milliseconds) apart, and should have been perceived as separate events, according to the study. "Children with autism have trouble integrating simultaneous information from their eyes and their ears," said study researcher Stephen Camarata, professor of hearing and speech sciences at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. "It is like they are watching a foreign movie that was badly dubbed." In children with autism, "when audio and visual signals happen during word learning, they don't get linked properly," said Camarata, who works with autistic children on their language and communication skills. Read More » 'Dead Priest's Hair'? Alternative Medicine Poisoned Man A man in Switzerland developed severe lead poisoning after undergoing an alternative medicine treatment — he took pills that he thought contained the hair of a dead Bhutanese priest, but the pills were actually replete with the toxic metal lead, according to a report of his case. Read More » Giant Surprise: Old Trees Grow Fastest  | "Trees keep growing like crazy throughout their life span," said Nate Stephenson, lead study author and a forest ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Three Rivers, Calif. Instead, only disease, insects, fire or accidents such as lightning will kill a tree, Stephenson said. Overall, a forest full of whippersnappers sucked more carbon from the atmosphere than a same-sized acreage filled by elderly trees. "But these early data weren't measuring individual trees, and that's where the rub comes in," said Todd Dawson, a forest biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study.
| Read More » Arctic Sea-Ice Cracks Attract Toxic Mercury  | Tiny tempests above cracks in Arctic sea ice help pull down toxic mercury and ozone from the sky — an unexpected new source of mercury pollution in the polar environment, according to research published today (Jan. 15) in the journal Nature. When the sun peeks above the horizon after a long, dark winter, the solar rays jump-start chemical reactions that quickly remove mercury and ozone from the lowest layers of the atmosphere.
| Read More » Alien Planet Around Solar Twin Found in Distant Star Cluster, a First (Video)  | Scientists using a powerful telescope in Chile have found an alien planet circling a star that is nearly identical to the sun and located in a star cluster 2,500 light-years from Earth. The discovery marks the first time that scientists have found an exoplanet circling a solar twin in a star cluster, according to European Southern Observatory officials, the group that operates the telescope instrument that made the discovery. Scientists used ESO's HARPS telescope instrument to find the exoplanet, which is a little smaller than Jupiter and takes seven days to orbit its star. The strange world, along with two other exoplanets also found by the HARPS instrument, are located in Messier 67, a star cluster populated by about 500 stars.
| Read More » Oddly Quiet Black Hole Spotted Around Fast-Spinning Star Astronomers have found a quiescent black hole orbiting a massive, fast-rotating star, suggesting that these strange binary systems may be common throughout the Milky Way galaxy. The huge star, MWC 656, known as a "B-emission" or "Be" star, shares space with a companion stellar-mass black hole, researchers report in a study published today (Jan. 15) in the journal Nature. Surprisingly, the black hole emits no X-ray radiation, explaining how the object had eluded detection until now. "It is important to note that only [one other] black hole with a massive stellar companion is known in the galaxy — the bright X-ray source Cyg X-1," study lead author Jorge Casares, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias in the Canary Islands, told SPACE.com via email. Read More » | |
