Friday, February 21, 2014

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

feedamail.com Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

History Repeating Itself at Antarctica's Fastest-Melting Glacier

It's no instant replay, but West Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier, one of the continent's fastest-changing ice streams, looks to be recreating 8,000-year-old history as it melts away, a new study suggests. Melting from Pine Island Glacier contributes 25 percent of Antarctica's total ice loss. Since the 1990s, Pine Island Glacier has thinned by about 5 feet (1.6 meters) per year and its flow to the sea has sped up. The history recorded by the rocks shows Pine Island Glacier's surface started dropping 3.3 feet (1 meter) per year about 8,000 years ago, the study reports.


Read More »

Artificial 'Yarn Muscles' 100X Stronger Than Human Muscles

Using just coiled fishing line and sewing thread, a team of scientists has developed a way to create super-strong artificial muscles. The artificial muscles could be used to power the limbs of humanoid robots, to open or close windows in a building to maintain the temperature, or even to make clothing with fibers that expand or contract to keep the wearer cool or warm. "The simplicity is the beauty of this technology," said Ray Baughman, a chemist at the University of Texas at Dallas and leader of the study, which was detailed today (Feb. 20) in the journal Science.


Read More »

Help Wanted to Find Lost 'Moby Dick' Asteroid

Officials with the online Slooh Space Camera tried to image the asteroid 2000 EM26 — nicknamed Moby Dick by some stargazers — on Monday night (Feb. 17), when it cruised within 2.1 million miles (3.4 million kilometers) of our planet. "We are calling on amateur astronomers to find this asteroid, and as a reward we will promote their accomplishment on our homepage for one year," Slooh CEO Michael Paolucci said in a statement. While 2000 EM26 poses no impact risk to Earth, losing track of it still highlights our planet's vulnerability to space-rock strikes, Slooh officials said. Moby Dick's flyby came nearly one year to the day after two major asteroid events got the world's attention.


Read More »

10 Words in Mysterious Voynich Manuscript Decoded

A researcher claims he's decoded 10 possible words in the famously unreadable Voynich manuscript, which has eluded interpretation for a century. Now Stephen Bax, a professor of applied linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire in England, says he's deciphered 14 characters of the script and can read a handful of items in the Voynich text, such as the words for coriander, hellebore and juniper next to drawings of the plants.


Read More »

Engineered 'Glue' Helps Wounds Heal Faster

These super healing abilities may be out of reach, but researchers in Switzerland have now engineered a substance called a growth factor that makes cuts and broken bones heal more quickly, by remaining near the damaged tissue longer than it would naturally. This engineered growth factor could benefit people with chronic wounds, including those with diabetes or compromised immune systems, according to the researchers, whose work is detailed in the Feb. 21 issue of the journal Science. Growth factors are proteins that animals produce naturally; When an injury happens, growth factors signal certain types of cells to come to the injury site, and help heal the wound.

Read More »

Spot Huge Asteroid Pallas in the Night Sky This Week

This week you will get an excellent opportunity to observe one of the largest asteroids, Pallas, as it passes close to Earth. Over the next couple of weeks, Pallas will be moving rapidly through the constellation Hydra, just south of Leo. Because its orbit is tilted 35 degrees to the ecliptic plane of the solar system, Pallas will appear to move almost north to south. Locate Pallas using Alphard, the brightest star in Hydra.


Read More »

Shocker! Melting Snow Electrocutes People, Pets

But those ice-free sidewalks and roadways may hold an even more dangerous threat: death by electrocution. Several blocks of busy Sixth Avenue in downtown Manhattan were cordoned off to pedestrians and vehicles yesterday (Feb. 19), following reports of a powerful electric current surging through sidewalk grates, manhole covers and the doorknobs of nearby buildings, Gothamist reported. The problem was a defective electric cable, according to service provider Consolidated Edison (Con Ed). Con Ed later admitted that her death was the result of poorly insulated electrical wires.

Read More »

Next-generation GPS satellite launched into orbit

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A U.S. Global Positioning System satellite was launched into orbit on Thursday, buttressing a 31-member navigation network in constant use by the military, civilian agencies and commercial customers worldwide. The satellite, built by Boeing, was carried into space aboard an unmanned Delta 4 rocket, which blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 8:59 p.m. EST/0159 Friday GMT. The Delta 4 rocket was built and launched by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, under contract with the U.S. Air Force. Once in position 12,000 miles above the planet, the new satellite will replace a 16-year-old member of the GPS constellation, one that already has lasted more than twice as long as expected.

Read More »

Women's Orgasm Woes: Could 'C-Spot' Be the Culprit?

And as it turns out, its size matters — a new study has found that in women who have orgasm problems, the clitoris is smaller, and located farther from the vagina. Comparing the two groups of women, the researchers found that the direct distance between the clitoris and the vagina (as measured by a line running straight through the body) was 5 to 6 millimeters longer on average in the group of women with orgasm problems. There's a C spot — the clitoris," said study researcher Dr. Susan Oakley, an OBGYN at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is difficult to know whether it is the anatomy of the clitoris that influences orgasm, or having more orgasms changes the anatomy, Oakley said.


Read More »

Advanced Prostate Cancer Linked to Mutations in 8 Genes

Men who carry mutations in eight specific genes may have an increased risk of developing an aggressive type of prostate cancer that runs in families, a new study from the United Kingdom suggests. Researchers analyzed blood samples from 191 men with prostate cancer who also had at least two relatives with prostate cancer. The researchers analyzed their DNA, looking for mutations in 22 known cancer genes. They found 13 mutations in eight genes that were linked with aggressive prostate cancer.

Read More »

Silver Hoop Earrings Found Among Ancient Treasure in Biblical City

A jug containing silver earrings and ingots has been discovered at the ancient biblical city of Abel Beth Maacah in Israel. "We found it in a small jug leaning against a wall, apparently on a dirt floor," said researchers Robert Mullins, Nava Panitz-Cohen and Ruhama Bonfil in an email to Live Science.


Read More »

Curiosity Rover Drives Backward on Mars to Reduce Wheel Wear

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has put it in reverse, completing its first-ever long backward drive. "We wanted to have backwards driving in our validated toolkit because there will be parts of our route that will be more challenging," Curiosity project manager Jim Erickson, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. Curiosity is currently embarked on a long trek to the base of Mount Sharp, which rises 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) into the Martian sky. The rover recently crossed a sand dune to enter a region called Moonlight Valley, which photos taken from orbit suggested would give Curiosity's wheels a bit of a break.


Read More »

Lava Bombs and Tsunamis! How Accurate Is 'Pompeii' Movie?

As flaming balls of lava and ash rain down on the streets of Pompeii, the renegade gladiator Milo gallops on horseback after a chariot ridden by his beloved Cassia, who has been kidnapped by an evil Roman senator. The new 3D "Pompeii" movie, in theaters tomorrow (Feb. 21), provides a front-row seat to one of the worst catastrophes in history: the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, which entombed the city and its residents in mammoth mounds of volcanic ash. Excepting the lava bombs and titanic tsunami raging in Pompeii's harbor, the dramatic depiction of the historic and horrific disaster stays relatively true to reality, scientists say. In fact, laser technology and aerial photos (digitally enhanced) ensured an impressive recreation of the city of Pompeii, from the lavish villas down to the paving stones.


Read More »

How Bones Can Reveal Child Abuse

By the time relatives found 19-month-old DeVarion Gross concealed inside an 18-gallon storage container in his mother's closet, his body was too decomposed for investigators to determine how he had died. They did, however, find other damning evidence that contributed to his mother's 2010 conviction in North Carolina: DeVarion had three rib fractures at different stages of healing — evidence of a history of abuse. "If he hadn't been decomposed, we probably would not have seen any of them," said Ann Ross, an anthropologist at North Carolina State University who examined DeVarion's remains. About 9.2 children per 1,000 in the United States were victims of child abuse in 2012, while 2.1 per 100,000 lost their lives to it in 2011, according to annual data.

Read More »

NASA Mars Probe Shifts Orbit to Study Early-Morning Fogs and Frosts

The longest-working Martian spacecraft recently made a slight change to its orbit that will allow it to make the first systematic observations of morning fog, clouds, and surface frost on the Red Planet. On Feb. 11, NASA's Odyssey orbiter — which arrived at the Red Planet in 2001 — underwent a gentle acceleration to put it into the first sunrise and sunset orbit in almost 40 years. "We're teaching an old spacecraft new tricks," Odyssey project scientist Jeffrey Plaut, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. From its new position, Odyssey will make the first sunrise and sunset observations since Voyager visited the planet in the 1970s.


Read More »

Smartphone-Piloted Drones Could Support US Troops on Front Lines

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is developing a military drone capable of assisting troops while avoiding hostile threats on the ground, such as ambushes and improvised explosive devices or IEDs. The so-called Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System (ARES) drones could transport cargo to and from the front lines of battle, deliver or pick up troops from out-of-the-way areas, or extract casualties, as well as conduct intelligence-gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance. The program aims to provide troops with more practical and accessible alternatives to helicopters, which remain in limited supply in the military, said DARPA program manager Ashish Bagai.


Read More »

Curiosity Rover Drives Backward on Mars to Reduce Wheel Wear and Tear

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has put it in reverse, completing its first-ever long backward drive. "We wanted to have backwards driving in our validated toolkit because there will be parts of our route that will be more challenging," Curiosity project manager Jim Erickson, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. Curiosity is currently embarked on a long trek to the base of Mount Sharp, which rises 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) into the Martian sky. The rover recently crossed a sand dune to enter a region called Moonlight Valley, which photos taken from orbit suggested would give Curiosity's wheels a bit of a break.


Read More »

Saturn and the Moon Pair Up Tonight: How to See Them

On Wednesday night of this week (Feb. 19), the moon had a rendezvous with the bright star Spica and the planet named for the god of war: Mars. And early on Saturday morning (Feb. 22), if skies are clear, you'll have an opportunity to catch sight of the last quarter moon pairing off with another planet, the ringed wonder of the solar system, Saturn.  


Read More »

Brain Imaging Shows the Language of Music

When jazz musicians let their creativity flow and start to improvise melodies, they use parts of their brains typically associated with spoken language — specifically, regions that help people interpret syntax or the structure of sentences, according to a new study. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine in Baltimore tracked brain activity as two jazz musicians played pieces from memory and then engaged in back-and-forth improvisation, creating something akin to a spontaneous musical conversation. They found that areas of the brain associated with syntax and language were very active as the musicians were improvising. "The areas of the brain related to language ramped way up when the musical behavior was spontaneous between the two musicians," said Charles Limb, an associate professor in the department of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at Johns Hopkins and senior author of a new study published today (Feb. 19) in the journal PLOS ONE.

Read More »

Dale Gardner, Jetpack-Flying Astronaut Who Salvaged Satellites, Dies at 65

NASA astronaut Dale Gardner, who in 1984 achieved the world's first space salvage during his second shuttle mission, died on Wednesday (Feb. 19). Dale Gardner made history becoming the last of six astronauts to use the manned maneuvering unit (MMU) jetpack as he worked to return two malfunctioning satellites to Earth. News of his passing was shared via social media on Thursday, with the Association of Space Explorers and the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida noting his death. One of the so-called "Thirty-Five New Guys" (or "TFNG") who NASA recruited in 1978 to train for its then-new space shuttle, Gardner flew twice as a mission specialist aboard the orbiters Challenger and Discovery in August 1983 and November 1984, respectively.


Read More »

Tomorrow's Wearable Tech Is Straight Out of 'Star Trek'

"I think wearables is a technology for the next decade," said Rob Shaddock, chief technology officer of the Swiss technology company TE Connectivity. Devices such as hearing aids have been around for decades. But what if hearing aids could stream audio directly from a music player? "That's where I see the future — integrating technology with the rest of the world around a user," said Kalyani Malleia, a senior systems engineer at Starkey Hearing Technologies, a hearing technology company based in Eden Prairie, Minn.


Read More »
 
Delievered to you by Feedamail.
Unsubscribe

Thursday, February 20, 2014

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

feedamail.com Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Lockheed enables Apache helicopter pilots to see targets in color

By Andrea Shalal HUNTSVILLE, Alabama (Reuters) - The U.S. Army has unveiled new technology that will for the first time allow AH-64 Apache helicopter pilots to see targeting and surveillance data in full, high-resolution color, instead of the fuzzy black and white images they get now. An Army official said new sensors developed by Lockheed Martin Corp over the past four years could help avoid mistakes such as the 2007 attack by two U.S. Apache helicopters that killed 12 people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, after they were mistaken for armed insurgents. U.S. Central Command has said an investigation of the incident found that U.S. forces were not aware of the presence of the news staffers and believed a camera held by one of the men was a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. "This additional situational awareness ... will give soldiers what they need to make the right decisions on the battlefield," Army Lieutenant Colonel Steven Van Riper, the Army's product manager for the Apache sensors, told reporters when asked if the new technology help avert such mistakes.

Read More »

Stress Causes Headaches, Scientists Confirm

Perhaps it's no surprise to anyone who has had a splitting migraine after a miserable day, but doctors have solidified the link between stress and headaches. Although headaches can be triggered by many factors, ranging from muscle strain to exposure to noxious gases, stress clearly plays a major role, according to a study released today (Feb. 19) which will be presented at a neurology research meeting in April. Conversely, participants who reported little stress in their lives had few, if any, headaches. For the study, the researchers grouped headaches into four categories: tension headaches, which are the most common, and involve intense pressure or muscle ache anywhere from the neck to the forehead;

Read More »

The Odd Ways Pregnancy Can Cause Vision Problems

Pregnancy can cause vision problems in sometimes unexpected ways, as two new medical reports show. Doctors determined that her eye problems were caused by severe preeclampsia, a complication of pregnancy involving high blood pressure and high levels of protein in the urine, according to the case reported by the researchers, from Mohammed V University in Morocco.  [9 Uncommon Conditions That Pregnancy May Bring] Dr. Jill Rabin, chief of ambulatory care, obstetrics and gynecology at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y., who was not involved in the woman's case, said a change in vision can be one symptom of preeclampsia. An exam showed that a blood vessel in her left eye had burst during her forceful vomiting, which caused bleeding in the eye.


Read More »

As Olympics Inspires Your 'Inner Athlete', Beware Common Injuries (Op-Ed)

Dr. Jason Lipetz is a physician with the department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in the North Shore-LIJ Health System. The combination of New Year's resolutions and the media surrounding the Winter Olympics in Sochi might encourage many people to embark upon fitness regimens, participation in exercise, and sports which they have not played in some time — and a re-evaluation of diet.‎ For some, this might involve beginning a gym membership. Others might introduce an outdoor or indoor aerobic exercise regimen in the form of running or cycling, although this winter those in the northeast might find particular difficulty finding a clean track or pavement. During this introduction of exercise and athletics, it is essential to start gradually and with proper instruction and technique.

Read More »

NASA Seeks Targets For Asteroid-Capture Mission

NASA has set up a "rapid response system" to pick the best candidates for its ambitious asteroid-capture mission. Others are too distant for telescopes to figure out what they're made of, which could make them unsuitable candidates. "There are other elements involved, but if size were the only factor, we'd be looking for an asteroid smaller than about 40 feet (12 meters) across," Paul Chodas, a senior scientist in the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, said in a a statement. Asteroids hit the headlines in a big way a year ago, when a space rock broke up over Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring 1,500 people.


Read More »

Cosmonaut Valery Kubasov, Apollo-Soyuz Crewmember, Dies at 79

Valery Kubasov, a Soviet-era cosmonaut whose three space missions included the first joint flight between the United States and Russia, died Wednesday (Feb. 19). "Very sad to report that Valery Kubasov has passed away in Moscow," the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), a professional organization whose astronaut and cosmonaut members included Kubasov, wrote in a brief statement. Selected in 1966 to train to be a cosmonaut together with other civilian engineers, Kubasov's highest-profile mission assignment was as one of the two Russian crewmembers for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). Joined on the flight by Alexei Leonov, who 10 years earlier had been the first man to perform a spacewalk, Kubasov launched onboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on July 15, 1975, and two days later docked with an American Apollo command module, marking the first time that the two Cold War rivals worked together in space.


Read More »

Australian scientists discover new marsupial known for fatal sex

Australian scientists have discovered a new species of marsupial, about the size of a mouse, which conduct marathon mating sessions that often prove fatal for the male. The Black-Tailed Antechinus has been found in the high-altitude, wet areas of far southeast Queensland and northeast New South Wales. "It's frenetic, there's no courtship, the males will just grab the females and both will mate promiscuously," Andrew Baker, head of the research team from the Queensland University of Technology who made the discovery, told Reuters.

Read More »

This State Bumps Hawaii as Happiest Place to Live

Move over, Hawaii. North Dakota is now the happiest state in the union. For the first time in five years, Hawaii does not rank highest in Gallup's annual well-being poll. Instead, North Dakota takes the top spot, with a well-being score of 70.4 out of 100, according to a new report released today (Feb. 20) by the polling agency.


Read More »

23% in US Use Online Doctor Ratings, Others Don't Trust Them

Researchers surveyed more than 2,000 U.S. adults in 2012 about their knowledge and use of online physician ratings sites. "The use of the sites does not seem to be decreasing, and therefore it might be time to come up with better approaches to provide what the public is looking for in a more open, transparent and trustworthy manner," Hanauer said.

Read More »

Man Has Skin Reaction to Tattoo — 20 Years Later

There have been many cases of people having allergic reactions just after getting a tattoo. The 54-year-old man had recently completed chemotherapy for the blood cancer lymphoma, and had just undergone a bone-marrow transplant using his own cells. Six days later, when his immune system was still suppressed because of the procedure, he developed a fever. Looking for the cause of the fever, doctors found newly formed skin lesions on the red-ink parts of his old tattoo, resembling the allergic reaction that some people experience when they get a new tattoo.


Read More »

Northern Lights Dance Over New England (Photos)

The northern lights spilled over into New England last night, courtesy of an eruption on the sun that supercharged a geomagnetic storm.  From the top of the Northeast's highest peak, a night observer at New Hampshire's Mount Washington Observatory snapped pictures of the greenish glow of auroras around 1:00 a.m. EST, and then again just after 2:00 a.m. EST. At 6,288 feet (1,916 meters) tall, Mount Washington is famous for its erratic weather and whipping winds, but skies were clear over the observatory overnight. The shimmering lights were also visible across the state border, in Maine, where photographer John Stetson stood on the frozen edge of Sebago Lake early Wednesday and pointed his camera north towards Raymond Beach.


Read More »

Famous Star Explosion Lit by Ultrafast Mach 1,000 Shock Wave

Astronomers studying the remnants of a well-known stellar explosion discovered a blisteringly fast shock wave that is rushing inward at 1,000 times the speed of sound, lighting up what remains of the powerful cosmic explosion. Scientists have now observed a formidable inward-racing shock wave that keeps one of these stellar corpses glowing. This so-called reverse shock wave is traveling at Mach 1,000, or a thousand times the speed of sound, heating the remains of the famous supernova SN 1572 and causing it to emit X-ray light, the researchers said. "We wouldn't be able to study ancient supernova remnants without a reverse shock to light them up," study leader Hiroya Yamaguchi, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., said in a statement.


Read More »

Stars Sparkle Like Diamonds in Space Scorpion Tail (Photo, Video)

The new photo, taken by astronomers with the European Southern Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert, shows the stars of Messier 7 (M7), a star cluster so bright that it can be seen with the naked eye. The cluster is about 800 light-years away in the tail of the constellation Scorpius (The Scorpion), and is one of the prominent ones in Earth's sky, ESO scientists said. The researchers used the ESO telescope observations to create a stunning video tour of the M7 star cluster, which Space.com set to the song "I Wonder" by the band Super 400. "Although it is tempting to speculate that these dark shreds are the remnants of the cloud from which the cluster formed, the Milky Way will have made nearly one full rotation during the life of this star cluster, with a lot of reorganization of the stars and dust as a result."


Read More »

The New Yoga? Sadomasochism Leads to Altered States, Study Finds

Consensual sadomasochism was long considered pathological, but psychologists studying people interested in BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism) have failed to find evidence that these sexual practices are harmful. If sadomasochism is not a pathology as once believed, the question is why some people engage in these painful sexual behaviors, said James Ambler, a graduate student in psychology at Northern Illinois University. "It seems, on the surface, very paradoxical," Ambler told Live Science.

Read More »

Pooperoni? Baby-Poop Bacteria Help Make Healthy Sausages

Scientists in Spain reasoned that probiotic bacteria could be used in fermented sausages as well.  "Probiotic fermented sausages will give an opportunity to consumers who don't take dairy products the possibility to include probiotic foods to their diet," said study co-author Anna Jofré, a food microbiologist at Catalonia's Institute of Food and Agricultural Research's (IRTA) food-safety program in Girona, Spain. For probiotic bacteria to work, they must survive the acids in the digestive tract.


Read More »

New Website Tracks Deforestation in Near Real-Time

A new map and website called Global Forest Watch provides the first near-real-time look at the planet's forests, using a combination of satellite data and user-generated reports. The website's developers hope that Global Forest Watch will help local governments and companies combat deforestation and save protected areas. "More than half a billion people depend on [forests] for their jobs, their food, their clean water," said Andrew Steer, the CEO of the World Resources Institute (WRI), which launched the website today (Feb. 20).


Read More »

Dead Landsat Satellite Photobombs Successor

Mike Gartley, a research scientist at the Rochester Institute of Technology, recently spotted the cameo during his hunt for "resident space objects" in Landsat images, according to NASA. "Believe it or not, there are anywhere from 1 to 4 such underflights of space objects that are passing through the field of view of Landsat 8 on any given day," Gartley told NASA's Earth Observatory. The most common interlopers are old rocket bodies and Russian satellites, Gartley said, though he has also spotted the International Space Station at least three times since last May. The United States keeps tabs on all the space junk and satellites circling the planet through the Space Surveillance Network, a U.S. Air Force program that uses telescopes, radars and computer models to catalogue these objects in order to identify potential collisions.


Read More »

Alaska Sets New Wind Chill Record

Gusting winds blew away Alaska's wind chill record on Valentine's Day (Feb. 14), setting a new low of minus 97 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 71 degrees Celsius). A remotely-operated National Weather Service sensor in Howards Pass, in northern Alaska's Brooks Range, recorded sustained winds of 71 mph (114 km/h) and gusts up to 78 mph (125 km/h) on Friday. The wind chill was calculated from the recorded temperature of minus 42 F (minus 41 C).


Read More »

Europe Picks Planet-Hunting Space Telescope for 2024 Launch

Europe will launch a space observatory a decade from now to hunt for Earth-like planets circling distant stars, officials announced Wednesday (Feb. 19). The European Space Agency has selected a space telescope called PLATO — short for Planetary Transits and Oscillations of stars — as its newest medium-class science mission. ?"PLATO will begin a completely new chapter in the exploration of extrasolar planets," mission leader Heike Rauer, of the German Aerospace Center, said in a statement. Like NASA's prolific Kepler space telescope, PLATO will detect planets by noticing the tiny brightness dips they cause when they cross in front of, or transit, their parent stars from the spacecraft's perspective.


Read More »

6 Types of Twitter Conversations Revealed

Twitter amplifies political echo chambers, hobbyists live in isolated bubbles, and a few trusted information sources still set the conversational agenda for breaking news. Surprisingly, conversations on Twitter tend to take one of only six different trajectories, said study co-author Marc Smith, the director of the Social Media Research Foundation, which conducted the study along with the Pew Research Center. "We think we're bringing the first aerial photographs of crowds in social media," Smith told Live Science. "Now people are gathering in the hashtags and fan pages and chat rooms of social media;

Read More »

Flu Hitting Young & Middle-Age Adults Hard

So far this flu season, 61 percent of all flu hospitalizations have been among adults ages 18 to 64 — an usually high percentage for this age group compared with previous seasons. During the last three flu seasons, adults in this age group have accounted for about 35 to 40 percent of flu hospitalizations, according to the CDC.  Deaths in this age group are also up: This flu season, about 60 percent of flu deaths have been among those ages 25 to 64. "Younger people may feel that influenza is not a threat to them, but this season underscores that flu can be a serious disease for anyone," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, told reporters today (Feb. 20).

Read More »
 
Delievered to you by Feedamail.
Unsubscribe