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Thursday, February 6, 2014

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Bionic hand allows amputee to feel again

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - Dennis Aabo Sorensen lost his left hand when a firework rocket he was holding exploded during New Year's Eve celebrations 10 years ago, and he never expected to feel anything with the stump again. But for a while last year he regained his sense of touch after being attached to a "feeling" bionic hand that allowed him to grasp and identify objects even when blindfolded. There is still work to be done in miniaturizing components and tidying away trailing cables that mean the robotic hand has so far only been used in the lab, but Sorensen said the European research team behind the project had got the basics right. Alastair Ritchie, a bioengineering expert at the University of Nottingham, who was not involved in the research, said the device was a logical next step but more clinical trials were now needed to confirm the system's viability.

The Real Reason Shy Toddlers Speak Late

Toddlers who don't talk much may not necessarily have a language delay, new research finds. Shy kids understand words, but when spoken to, they may clam up instead of speaking up. Delayed speech is linked to social struggles later in life, so researchers wanted to understand whether shy kids can't produce language or simply don't want to. The good news is that shy kids don't show language acquisition delays, said study researcher Soo Rhee, a psychologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

DARPA Publishes Huge Online Catalog of Open Source Code

the branch of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for developing new, cutting-edge technologies for the military — is shedding some of its secrecy by making all of its open-source code freely and easily accessible online. The catalog will function as a way for DARPA to organize and share results from the agency's research efforts, according to DARPA officials. The database will likely be of particular interest to the research and development community, and DARPA is hoping the move will spur innovation and lead to new collaborations in the future. "Making our open source catalog available increases the number of experts who can help quickly develop relevant software for the government," Chris White, DARPA program manager, said in a statement.

Woolly Mammoths and Rhinos Ate Flowers

Woolly mammoths, rhinos and other ice age beasts may have munched on high-protein wildflowers called forbs, new research suggests. The new research "paints a different picture of the Arctic," thousands of years ago, said study co-author Joseph Craine, an ecosystem ecologist at Kansas State University.

Man Gets First Prosthetic Hand That Can Feel

Nine years ago, Dennis Aabo Sørensen severely wounded his left arm in a fireworks accident, and had to have it amputated. Researchers embedded electrodes in Sørensen's arm, and touch sensors in a prosthetic hand to stimulate his remaining nerves. With the hand, Sørensen was able to recognize different objects by their feel, and grasp them appropriately, according to the study detailed online today (Feb. 5) in the journal Science Translational Medicine. "I could feel things that I hadn't been able to feel in over nine years," Sørensen, who lives in Denmark, said in a statement.

Robotic Russian Cargo Ship Docks with Space Station after Express Flight

An unmanned Russian cargo spacecraft docked with the International Space Station today (Feb. 5) to deliver supplies to the crewmembers manning the space laboratory after a quick trip through space.

Wobbly Alien Planet with Wild Seasons Found by NASA Telescope

Astronomers have discovered an alien planet that wobbles at such a dizzying rate that its seasons must fluctuate wildly. The warm planet is a gassy super-Neptune that orbits too close to its two parent stars to be in its system's "habitable zone," the region where temperatures would allow liquid water, and perhaps life as we know it, to exist. The faraway world, which lies 2,300 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, was discovered by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope. Kepler was designed to detect exoplanets by noticing the dips in brightness caused when these worlds transit, or cross in front of, their parent stars.

Pow! Fresh Crater on Mars Spotted by NASA Spacecraft (Photo)

A NASA spacecraft has snapped a stunning photo of a fresh Martian crater that was gouged out of the Red Planet just in the last three years or so. "The crater spans approximately 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter and is surrounded by a large, rayed blast zone," NASA officials wrote in a description of the new image. "Before-and-after imaging that brackets appearance dates of fresh craters on Mars has indicated that impacts producing craters at least 12.8 feet (3.9 meters) in diameter occur at a rate exceeding 200 per year globally," NASA officials wrote. The spacecraft has been observing the Red Planet with its suite of powerful instruments ever since, giving scientists their best-ever looks at the surface of this alien world.

Eating Yogurt May Reduce Risk of Diabetes

Eating yogurt four or five times a week may lower the risk for developing Type 2 diabetes, a new study has found. This risk reduction was seen in study participants who consumed an average of four and a half 4-ounce servings of low-fat yogurt per week, according to the study published today (Feb. 5) in the journal Diabetologia. The study found an association, not a cause-and-effect relationship between eating yogurt and lowered risk of diabetes. They found that replacing a serving of chips with a serving of yogurt reduced the risk of diabetes by 47 percent.

Spending a Week in the Dark Could Boost Hearing

"Even in adults, when you actually lose vision for a few days, you can improve auditory processing," said study co-author Hey-Kyoung Lee, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. The new results suggest that sensory deprivation could be a viable way to train adults with hearing loss to better process sounds coming from cochlear implants, the researchers said. "Once you put the animals in the dark for about a week, the neurons in the auditory part of the brain start processing sound better," Lee told Live Science. Electrodes placed in the mice's auditory cortex, which processes sound, also showed stronger connections between the neurons.

Epidural May Prolong Labor More Than Thought

Using epidurals for pain relief during a baby's delivery may prolong labor more than previously thought, a new study finds. In the study, the researchers looked at more than 42,000 women in California who delivered vaginally between 1976 and 2008, and compared the length of the second stage of labor, which is the time it takes for "pushing" the baby out after the cervix has fully opened, among women who had received epidurals and those who hadn't. Although it was thought that epidurals lengthen labor by about one hour, the researchers found that women who had epidurals actually took two to three hours longer to get through the second stage of labor, compared with women who hadn't received this pain medication, according to the study, published today (Feb. 5) in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. "When epidural is used, it may be normal for labor to take two hours longer, and physicians don't necessarily have to intervene, as long as women are progressing and the baby is OK," said Dr. Yvonne Cheng, one of the researchers on the study and an obstetrician at University of California, San Francisco.

Charlemagne's Bones Are Likely Authentic, Scientists Say

The relics of Charlemagne, long on display at a treasury in Germany, are likely the real bones of the Frankish king, scientists say. Last Tuesday (Jan. 28) marked exactly 1,200 years since Charlemagne died in A.D. 814. To commemorate the occasion, a group of scientists at the Cathedral of Aachen gave a summary of the research that has been conducted on the king's bones, stretching back to 1988. Like many saints whose body parts were scattered in various reliquaries, Charlemagne was not left to rest in one piece.

Olympic Figure Skating: Human Body's Limits May Prevent Leap Forward

For a sport judged partially on style, figure skating has not changed much with the times: The billowing, sequined costumes look the same as they have for decades, the classical music never goes in or out of style, and the jumps (which actually determine the score) have more or less stayed the same. And given those limits, fans shouldn't expect moves to change much in the future either, said Tom Zakrajsek, a world and Olympic figure-skating coach based in Colorado Springs, Colo., who will head to Sochi this Thursday (Feb. 6) to coach Max Aaron, an alternate for U.S. Men's Figure Skating Singles. Skaters typically spend between 0.65 and 0.70 seconds in the air for jumps, and fitting in an extra spin would require them to extend that time to between 0.72 and 0.75 seconds, Zakrajsek said. [Winter Warriors: The Fitness Skills of 9 Olympic Sports] James Richards, a biomechanist at the University of Delaware who studies the mechanics of figure-skating jumps, does not think a quintuple is feasible for the human body.

Is the Northeast Running Out of Road Salt?

But that changed this week, as the northeastern United States got walloped with another heavy winter snowfall, and stocks of road salt hit dangerously low levels. Wednesday (Feb. 5), New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency, citing a regional shortage of road salt.

Fate of a Fertilized Egg: Why Some Embryos Don't Implant

In the study, researchers found that human embryos typically produce a chemical called trypsin, which signals the womb to prepare its lining for implantation. But in embryos with significant genetic abnormalities, this chemical signal was altered, and it produced a stress response in the womb that could make implantation unlikely, the researchers said. The researchers likened this process to an "entrance exam" set by the womb — an embryo needs to pass this test in order to implant. But sometimes, the womb may make this exam too difficult or too easy, which could lead to the rejection of healthy embryos, or the implantation of embryos with development problems, the researchers said.

Bumblebees Can Fly Higher Than Mount Everest

Alpine bumblebees have the ability to fly at elevations greater than Mt. Everest, scientists have found. Bumblebees cannot survive the freezing conditions of Mt. Everest's peak. But researchers based at the University of California, Berkley simulated the low oxygen and low air density conditions of such high elevations to determine the limits of the bumblebee's flight capacity, and found the bees were capable of staying afloat at remarkably inhospitable elevations. The researchers placed the bees in clear, sealed boxes and experimentally adjusted the oxygen levels and air density using a hand pump to simulate increasing elevation, while keeping temperature constant.

Drones Enter the Battle Against Elephant, Rhino Poachers

Google gave the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) a $5 million Global Impact Award about a year ago to look for new ways to detect and deterwildlife crime. Now the conservation group and its partners in Namibia are just about ready to implement bungee-launched drones and a host of other poacher-tracking technologies in some of the country's national parks, WWF officials say. With such high profits at stake, poaching rings have adopted technologies like night vision goggles, silenced weapons and even helicopters to find and kill some of the world's most threatened mammals. This landscape is "not a level playing field" for less-equipped rangers in Namibia, some of whom are charged with managing vast protected areas, like the New Jersey-sized Etosha National Park, said Crawford Allan, who is leading the WWF's Wildlife Crime Technology Project.

Greenland's First Coral Reef Found

A cold-water coral that thrives in deep, dark water has been found growing off the shore of Greenland as a reef for the first time, scientists report. A Canadian research ship sampling water near southwest Greenland's Cape Desolation discovered the Greenland coral reef in 2012, when its equipment came back to the surface with pieces of coral attached. "At first, the researchers were swearing and cursing at the smashed equipment, and were just about to throw the pieces of coral back into the sea, when luckily, they realized what they were holding," Helle Jørgensbye, a doctoral student at the Technical University of Denmark who is studying the reef, said in a statement. Cold-water corals have been found off of Greenland's west coast before, but never the stone coral Lophelia pertusa, and never as a reef, according to a report by the researchers published in the journal ICES Insight.

Astronauts to Watch Winter Olympic Games from Space Station

The 2014 Winter Olympics are about to begin in Sochi, Russia, and astronauts will be watching the games from their vantage point high above Earth on the International Space Station. The space station currently plays host to a crew of six international astronauts and cosmonauts, a unique viewing party for one of the biggest worldwide events of the year. NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio expects that there will be some friendly international competition during the games, especially if the Russians and Americans compete against each other. You can watch the full space sports interview on Space.com, with Mastracchio also touching on the recent Super Bowl XLVIII.

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Wednesday, February 5, 2014

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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Hello, Hot Stuff! New Hawaii Magma Source Found

Hawaii's Kilauea volcano conceals a deeply buried magma chamber beneath its East Rift Zone, where lava hasn't stopped streaming from the surface for 31 years, a new study reports. "This work could change our thoughts about how [the] Kilauea volcano works, as no deep magma chambers have been observed before," said Guoqing Lin, lead study author and a geophysicist at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Florida. Since a powerful magnitude-7.2 earthquake rattled Kilauea on Nov. 29, 1975, scientists have suspected that Kilauea's East Rift Zone — a broad ridge that extends from the volcano's summit to the ocean floor — sits atop a magma blob.

Scientists Map What Your Brain Looks Like on English

Researchers may now be closer to understanding how the brain processes sounds, or at least those made in English. Taking advantage of a group of hospitalized epilepsy patients who had electrodes hooked directly to their brains to monitor for seizures, Dr. Edward Chang and his colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, and University of California, Berkeley, were able to listen in on the brain as it listened to 500 English sentences spoken by 400 different native English speakers.

First Image of Cosmic Web Revealed by Deep-Space 'Flashlight'

By using the radiation from a distant quasar, the brightest objects in the universe, the international team of scientists captured the previously unseen threads stretching between galaxies. "The light from the quasar is like a flashlight beam," Sebastiano Cantalupo, lead author of the new study and a researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in a statement.

Bees' Salt-Sensing Feet Explain Swimming Pool Mystery

The first-ever investigation of the honeybee ability to taste with their front feet may explain a persistent bee mystery: Why they swarm saltwater swimming pools. Now, scientists find that bees have taste receptors on their feet that are so sensitive to salt, that they even dwarf the bees' capacity to taste sweets. "Our guess is they may not need to land on the water surface" to taste the salt, said study researcher Martin Giurfa, the director of the Research Center on Animal Cognition at the University of Toulouse in France.

Scientists Map What Your Brain Looks Like on English

Ever wonder how your brain distinguishes all the sounds in a language? How does it know "b" is different from "z"?

WATCH LIVE: Bill Nye Debates Creationist on Evolution

DuPont adds weather, new trading to precision farming program

DuPont Pioneer, the agricultural seed unit of DuPont, said Tuesday that it signed a deal with DTN/The Progressive Farmer to provide weather and market information to farmers, along with new grain trading capabilities, all accessed through mobile devices. So this is just another step to being able to address key needs," said DuPont Pioneer Director of Services Joe Foresman. DuPont Pioneer customers will have access to an exclusive network of weather stations, including those positioned on growers' farms, for real-time local information, as well as environmental conditions in other regions and forecast data, said Foresman. DuPont and DTN also will combine technologies from both companies to offer farmers electronic grain trading capabilities, officials with both companies said.

5 Battles in the War Between Creationism and Evolution

Did modern life on Earth evolve over millions of years, or was it created in the blink of an eye by God?

Scientists Map What Your Brain Looks Like on English

Fast and Sexy: Hot Cyclists Really Do Win the Race

The Tour de France is a bike race, not a beauty contest. The link between sexiness and cycling success hints that male attractiveness might signal evolutionary fitness, researchers report today (Feb. 4) in the journal Biology Letters. Women may clue into some facet of male hotness as an evolutionary remnant of the days when long-distance hunting and gathering meant the difference between life and death, said study researcher Erik Postma, an evolutionary biologist at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zürich. "If a woman chooses a man with high endurance, she can be sure he will bring home plenty of food for herself and her children," Postma told Live Science.

First Death from New H10N8 Bird Flu Reported

An elderly woman in China is the first person known to have died from a strain of bird flu called H10N8, according to a new report of the case. The 73-year old woman, from Jiangxi Province in China, developed a fever, cough and chest tightness in late November last year, and was admitted to the hospital soon afterwards. Tests showed the woman did not have a seasonal flu virus, but rather, she was infected with H10N8, a flu virus that's been detected previously in wild and domestic birds, but had never been seen in people. Late last month, another case of H10N8 was reported in a 55-year old woman living in the same province in China, and she is in stable condition, according to the World Health Organization.

One-Third of Kids Killed in Car Crashes Were Unbuckled

One-third of children who die in car crashes are not buckled up, according to a new government report. "Thousands of children are in risk on the road because they are not buckled up," CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said at a news conference today (Feb. 4). Studies have shown that using seat belts, car seats and booster seats that are appropriate for a child's age and size significantly reduces the risk of injury and death in a crash. In 2011, more than 650 children ages 12 and under died in car crashes.

World Bank eyes $1 billion African resource mapping fund in July

By Wendell Roelf CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - The World Bank wants to launch a $1 billion fund in July to map the mineral resources of Africa, using satellites and airborne surveys to fill geological gaps across the continent where a lack of adequate data hampers mining investments. The World Bank has committed $200 million to the five-year fund, and was meeting with mining companies and governments from sub-Saharan Africa who have expressed interest, a senior bank official told Reuters on Wednesday. "Times are tough, so the mining companies are counting their pennies, but there is a lot of interest because it is exactly when commodity prices are low and the companies are reducing their investment budgets that having the information to guide their priorities is valuable," said Paulo de Sa, senior manager at the World Bank's mining unit. De Sa met with 10 mining companies on the sidelines of an African mining conference, including Rio Tinto and Ivanhoe Mines, who were interested in the fund.

Icicles Galore: Visitors Flock to Apostle Islands' Frozen Ice Caves (Photo)

For the first time in five years, intrepid visitors to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore can make the icy trek along the frozen waters of Lake Superior to glimpse the millions of icicles — some several stories tall — that embellish the region's incredible ice caves. The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is made up of 22 islands in Lake Superior, located off the coast of northern Wisconsin. This year, however, the ice on Lake Superior is thick enough for people to reach the ice caves — for the first time since 2009, according to officials at the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Interior Department released a jaw-dropping photo of one of the Apostle Islands ice caves, showing thick ice blanketing the cave's interior, and spectacular icicles dangling from the ceiling.

Smashing Gold! Big Bang's 'Particle Soup' To Be Created in Lab

Editor's Note: This article was updated at 4:00 p.m. E.T. A new experiment that smashes gold nuclei at near light speed could mimic the particle soup created an instant after the Big Bang. The experiment, which will be carried out at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, has just begun pumping liquid helium into 1,740 superconducting magnets to chill them to near absolute zero (minus 273 degrees Celsius, or minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit). The team will then steer beams of gold ions — gold atoms stripped of their electrons and positively charged — into each other at nearly the speed of light, creating scorching temperatures of 7.2 trillion degrees Fahrenheit (4 trillion degrees Celsius).

Russian Supply Ship Launching to Space Station Today: Watch It Live

A robotic Russian cargo ship will make an express delivery to the International Space Station today (Feb. 5) and you can watch the launch live online. The unmanned Progress 54 spacecraft is due to lift off atop a Soyuz rocket at 11:23 a.m. EST (1623 GMT) carrying more than 2.5 tons of supplies for the six-man crew currently living on the space station. The mission will launch from Baikonur Cosomdrome in Kazakhstan, where the local time will be 10:23 p.m., NASA officials said. It is expected to be bitterly cold at the launch site, where temperatures reached minus 17 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 27 degrees Celsius) on Monday, when the Soyuz rocket rolled out to the launch pad.

Jupiter and Orion Shine Over Canary Islands in Dazzling Night Sky Photo

The brilliant planet Jupiter and constellation Orion shine brightly in this glittering night sky photo shot from the Canary Islands.

Sochi Olympics: Ground Zero for Avalanches?

The Caucasus Mountains, which stretch across southern Russia from the Caspian Sea westward to the Black Sea, are home to some of the highest peaks in the world — Mount Elbrus, at 18,510 feet (5,642 meters), is the highest mountain in Europe. The rugged, isolated mountain range is getting international attention this week, as the world's gaze turns to the 2014 Winter Olympics, held in Sochi on the western edge of the Caucasus range. But since 2008 (when Sochi was selected as the Olympic host city), the jagged peaks and rocky slopes of the Caucasus Mountains have been scrutinized by scientists because of one other feature of the range: Its unique combination of climate and topography has caused some of the deadliest avalanches in recent history. On the evening of Sept. 20, 2002, a fast-moving avalanche of rock and ice killed 140 people, smashed dozens of homes and businesses, wiped out roads and obliterated other infrastructure on the northern face of the Caucasus Mountains near the Kolka Glacier.

Germany says will abstain on EU vote to approve GMO maize

Germany will abstain in an upcoming European Union vote to approve cultivation of genetically modified maize of type 1507, a government spokesman said on Wednesday. The European Commission proposed in November that governments approve only the third ever genetically modified crop for cultivation in Europe and a vote is expected on Tuesday next week. The proposal covers an insect-resistant maize developed jointly by DuPont and Dow Chemical which, if approved, would end Monsanto's current monopoly in Europe's tiny market for GMO crops. German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said: "The German government has agreed to abstain in the vote on the approval of this GMO maize of type 1507." "It is normal procedure to abstain on a dossier where there are different opinions within the government on the matter." (Reporting by Stephen Brown and Michael Hogan;

Indian Ocean's Oldest Shipwreck Set for Excavation

The oldest known shipwreck in the Indian Ocean has been sitting on the seafloor off the southern coast of Sri Lanka for some 2,000 years. In just a couple of weeks, scuba-diving archaeologists will embark on a months-long excavation at the site, looking for clues about trade between Rome and Asia during antiquity. The wreck lies 110 feet (33 meters) below the ocean's surface, just off the fishing village of Godavaya, where German archaeologists in the 1990s found a harbor that was an important port along the maritime Silk Road during the second century A.D. "Everything's pretty broken," said Deborah Carlson, president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University, who is leading the expedition to the Godavaya wreck with colleagues from the United States, Sri Lanka and France.

Peer Inside an Asteroid: Peanut-Shaped Space Rock's Insides Revealed (Photos)

Scientists using a European Southern Observatory telescope have made precise measurements of Asteroid Itokawa's density. The peanut-shaped space rock is about 1,755 feet (535 meters) long on its longest side and takes about 556 days to orbit the sun. Scientists measured the density by studying images of Itokawa taken by the New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, as well as by other telescopes, from 2001 to 2013. Stephen Lowry, a researcher at the University of Kent, and his team measured how the brightness of the space rock varies during its rotation, ESO officials said.

Killer Whale Populations Took Deep Dive During Ice Age

Killer whale populations around the world may have suffered steep declines during the last Ice Age, when food for these top predators may have been scarce, a new study finds. Researchers at Durham University, in Durham, England, sequenced the whole genomes of killer whale communities around the world, and found that global populations of these whales experienced a significant disruption and subsequent decline during the most recent Ice Age, when glaciers covered Antarctica, large swaths of Europe, North America and South America, and parts of Asia. The scientists studied DNA sequences from 616 samples, and discovered a loss of genetic diversity in killer whale populations worldwide approximately 40,000 years ago, during the Ice Age in the Pleistocene Epoch. Genetic diversity can act as an indicator of a population's health, with greater diversity typically signifying a larger population size, according to the researchers.

Robotic Russian Cargo Ship Launches Express Delivery to Space Station

An unmanned Russian cargo ship launched on a quick trip to the International Space Station today (Feb. 5) to deliver tons of supplies for astronauts living on the orbiting laboratory.

France plans law to restore GMO crop ban

France has launched a move to restore a ban on genetically modified (GMO) maize annulled by its top court to prevent sowings this spring that could raise public outcry in a country strongly opposed to GMO crops. A Senator of the ruling Socialist party submitted a draft law on Tuesday calling for the cultivation of any variety of genetically modified maize to be prohibited in the country. France's previous bans on GMO maize, which only applied to Monsanto's MON 810, the sole GMO crop allowed for cultivation in the European Union, had all been overturned by the country's highest administrative court as lacking sufficient scientific grounds.

Low T: Real Illness or Pharma Windfall?

Low levels of the sex hormone testosterone — commonly referred to as "low T" — have been blamed for a host of health conditions, ranging from depression to increased breast size in men. "We're giving people hormones that we don't know they need, for a disease that we don't know they have, and we don't know if it'll help them or harm them," Dr. Lisa Schwartz, a professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, told The New York Times.

18.2 Feet! One of Biggest Burmese Pythons Caught in Florida

Florida officials say they've bagged one of the biggest Burmese pythons ever found in the state: an 18.2-foot-long (5.5 meters) female weighing some 150 pounds (68 kilograms). The snake, which was shot and killed in the Everglades on Tuesday (Feb. 4), could set a record for the largest Burmese python ever seen on state-owned lands, said Randy Smith, a spokesperson for the South Florida Water Management District. The animal, however, measures a few inches shorter than the longest-ever Burmese python found in Florida: a snake that stretched 18 feet, 8 inches (5.6 meters) long and was wrangled by a man on the side of the road in a rural part of Miami-Dade County in May 2013. It's alarming to find Burmese pythons with such robust physique in the wilds of Florida, because the snake is considered an invasive species.

Bill Nye's Creationism Debate Not a Total Disaster, Scientists Say

The debate between science popularizer Bill Nye and creationist Ken Ham last night (Feb. 4) was controversial before it even began. Scientists from across disciplines argued that debating young-Earth creationism legitimizes the idea, which holds that the Bible's Book of Genesis is a literal description of the creation of the world 6,000 years ago. Scientists and science educators also worried that Nye would be backed into a corner by a barrage of nonsensical misrepresentations of scientific evidence, impossible to refute without teaching the audience Science 101. "Success, as much as there could be in this situation, came when the scripted part was over and Nye put his heart, soul and guts into his direct reactions to Ham's," said Holly Dunsworth, an anthropologist at the University of Rhode Island.

Giant Astronaut Statue Envisioned for New Apollo Visitor Center in Texas

A new Texas-size tribute to NASA's Apollo manned moon landings may give new meaning to the phrase "giant leap." An 80-foot-tall (24 meters) statue of a spacesuited astronaut is planned as the centerpiece for the Apollo Center, a newly-announced visitor attraction in Webster, Texas. Proposed as a 20,000 square-foot (1,860 square meters) facility located just down the road from NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, the Apollo Center would serve as an education and conference center. The "venue [will] serve not only as a tribute to the Apollo program ... but also as a window into the future of space exploration, space habitation, and space technology," the non-profit behind the new center described in a brochure.

Black Holes Heated Early Universe Slower Than Previously Thought

Black holes acting as companions to early stars may have taken more time to raise the temperature of the ancient universe than previously thought, a new study suggests. Two cosmic milestones occurred in the universe a few hundred million years after the Big Bang— dominating hydrogen gas was both heated and made transparent. "Previously, it was thought that these two milestones are well separated in time, and thus in observational data as well," study co-author Rennan Barkana, of Tel Aviv University, told Space.com via email. Barkana worked with lead study author Anastasia Fialkov, also of Tel Aviv University, and Eli Visbal, of Columbia University, to determine that the heating most likely overlapped the early, and perhaps middle, part of reionization, the process that allowed the events of the early universe to become visible to scientists today, making the heating potentially observable to astronomers today.

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