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Friday, February 13, 2015

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Dogs Can Tell Happy or Angry Human Faces

Dogs may indeed be able to discriminate between happy and angry human faces, according to a new study. During the training stage, each dog was shown only the upper half or the lower half of the person's face. The investigators then tested the pups' ability to discriminate between human facial expressions by showing them different images from the ones used in training. The dogs were shown either the other half of the face used in the training stage, the other halves of people's faces not used in training, a face that was the same half as the training face but from a different person, or the left half of the face used in the training stage.

2 Jurassic Mini Mammal Species Discovered in China

Dinosaurs may have dominated the planet during the Jurassic Period, but they shared the landscape with little rodentlike creatures. Two new species of these pocket-size early mammals have been discovered in China — one was a horny-clawed tree-dweller, and the other was a tunnel-digger with shovel-like paws.

Future Space Station Crew Dons Jedi Robes for Star Wars-Inspired Poster

NASA on Thursday (Feb. 12) revealed the official poster for the International Space Station Expedition 45 crew and let's just say, the Force is strong with them. The six astronauts and cosmonauts, who will begin their residency on the orbital outpost beginning this September, traded their blue NASA flight suits for brown Jedi robes at the photo shoot. Entitled "International Space Station Expedition XLV: The Science Continues," the poster features the station's first year-long mission crew Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko (right, bottom and middle), together with NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren (left, bottom), Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko (right, top and left, top) and Kimiya Yui with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The poster includes the crew's official mission patch at its center (which may or may not be coincidentally the same shape as an Imperial Star Destroyer), flanked on its sides by a Russian Soyuz rocket like the type the crew will ride to orbit and a European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) with its distinctive "X-wing" solar panels.

Four Space Shuttle Fliers to Be Inducted by Astronaut Hall of Fame

The U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame will honor four space shuttle astronauts this spring as it marks 25 years since its founding. Spacewalker John Grunsfeld and Rhea Seddon, who was one of NASA's first female astronauts, will be enshrined alongside space shuttle commanders Steven Lindsey and Kent Rominger during a May 30 ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "This year marks the historic 25th anniversary of the Hall, which was conceived in 1989 by the Mercury astronauts," Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex officials stated on Thursday (Feb. 12).

Furry forerunners: Jurassic arboreal, burrowing mammals unearthed

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It may not have been the most opportune time to be a furry little critter, what with all those hungry dinosaurs and flying reptiles hanging around. Scientists on Thursday described fossils unearthed in China of two shrew-sized creatures that represent the oldest-known tree-climbing and burrowing mammals and show that early mammals had claimed a variety of ecological niches.

For many of China's biotech brains-in-exile, it's time to come home

By Irene Jay Liu SHANGHAI (Reuters) - In biotech parks across the Yangtze River Delta, dozens of start-ups are working to develop drugs to treat China's biggest emerging diseases - from diabetes and Hepatitis B to respiratory illnesses and cancer. It's early days, but firms like Hua Medicine and Innovent Biologics embody China's hopes for competitive biomedical innovation. From school in the late 1970s and 1980s, when only elite students gained entry into China's few biochemistry and molecular biology programs, they left China, graduated and worked their way up to senior positions in the world's top pharmaceutical companies. For decades, China tried to woo them home, but they were reluctant to return to a cloistered, politicized scientific establishment where winning research funds and promotion often depends on who you know.

New Footage Reveals Discovery of Richard III's Death Blow

Newly released footage depicts the moment scientists discovered the fatal wound that almost certainly took the life of King Richard III of England. Richard III's long-lost grave was rediscovered in a parking lot in Leicester, England, in 2012. Richard III held the throne for only two years before his death, which occurred as part of the Wars of the Roses. He has long been a controversial figure, in particular because of a William Shakespeare play, "Richard III," which portrays him as an immoral, hunchbacked villain.

These Spectacular Comet Photos from Rosetta Will Only Get Better

A European spacecraft orbiting a comet continues to beam incredible photos of the icy, dusty cosmic body back to Earth. Rosetta was about 17 miles (28 kilometers) from the center of Comet 67P/C-G when it took the amazing photos, and now, the spacecraft is about to embarking on a different kind of orbit that will bring it even closer to the comet's surface. "On 4 February, Rosetta moved into a new operating phase characterised by a series of flybys past 67P/C-G at a range of distances, the first of which will be the very close encounter planned for next weekend, when Rosetta will pass just 6 km from the surface of the comet on 14 February," ESA officials said in a blog post.

Student Loans May Be Bad for Young Adults' Mental Health

College takes a heavy toll on a student's mental health. A new study is one of the first to look at the link between student loans and mental health in young adults. Lead author Katrina Walsemann, an associate professor in the Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior at the University of South Carolina, and her colleagues analyzed responses from 4,643 Americans born between 1980 and 1984. As the researchers suspected, the data show a clear trend: the higher the student's loans, the poorer his or her mental health.

13 Freaky Things That Happened on Friday the 13th

Perhaps Friday the 13th wasn't the best day to stage a leap into New York's Genesee River. Patch, who was born around 1800, lived before Friday the 13th superstitions were prevalent.

Origins of Friday the 13th: How the Day Got So Spooky

Certainly the idea was firmly implanted in the cultural consciousness by 1980, when the slasher flick "Friday the 13th" was released. The hockey-masked villain of that tale, Jason Voorhees, has taken on a life of his own, driving 12 films as well as multiple novellas and comic books. Thus, it's no surprise that a Google Ngram search of the phrase "Friday the 13th" finds the term shot up in use in books in 1980. Credit for popularizing the Friday the 13th myth often goes to Capt. William Fowler, a noted soldier who rubbed elbows with former presidents and other high-profile people of the late 1800s.

Doctors Who Treat Ebola Feel More Socially Isolated

Doctors who take care of very sick Ebola patients may feel socially isolated, but surprisingly, they may not feel more stressed than usual, a new study from Germany suggests. Researchers surveyed 46 health care workers who treated Germany's first Ebola patient in August 2014, as well as 40 health care workers who worked in the same hospital but did not treat the Ebola patient.

It's Raining Milk! Odd Weather Puzzles Scientists

Milky white rain poured down on eastern Washington state and northeast Oregon on a wintery morning last week. "I walked out to go somewhere in my car, and I noticed it was covered with mud," said Robin Priddy, director of Benton Clean Air in Kennewick, Washington. Dust likely gave the rain its light hue, but it's unclear where the dust came from, especially since it was a windless day, Priddy told Live Science. The inland Northwest is typically dry, so "it's not crazy unusual to get dust storms here," Priddy said.

Glowing Protein Reveals Animals' Brain Activity

With the help of a protein, researchers now have a more precise way to see brain activity — right down to what's going on in a single cell, in living brains. A team of researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland has found a protein that binds to calcium particles in the brain and changes color from green to red as the brain cells become active. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is one way to show brain activity — it is based on the idea that blood flow in the brain corresponds with activity. Another method, which is aimed at letting researchers see the activity of individual cells, involves genes called immediate early genes (IEGs) that code for proteins that are only present when neurons are active.

Online Dating Tips to Help You Find 'The One'

Among the findings: picking a screen name that starts with a letter in the first half of the alphabet may be as important as a pretty photo. It's best to survey the pickings on a dating site before committing to that service. "Most people just don't do this," said study co-author Khalid Khan, an epidemiologist at Queen Mary University of London. For the current study, the motivation was personal: Dr. Sameer Chaudhry, an internist at the University of North Texas in Dallas, was having no luck finding love online.

Scientists spot 2nd baby orca in endangered pod in 2 months

FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. (AP) — A scientist who tracks a group of endangered killer whales that frequent Puget Sound says he's spotted a second baby born to the pod in the past two months.

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Thursday, February 12, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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SpaceX rocket blasts off to put weather satellite into deep space

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A SpaceX rocket blasted off on Wednesday to put a U.S. satellite into deep space, where it will keep tabs on solar storms and image Earth from nearly 1 million miles (1.6 million km) away. Weather was pristine for launch on Wednesday, but high seas prompted SpaceX to cancel a test to land the rocket's discarded first stage on a platform in the ocean. "Unfortunately we will not be able to attempt to recover the first stage of the Falcon 9," SpaceX said in a statement.

SpaceX Launches DSCOVR Space Weather Satellite, But No Rocket Landing

The third time was the charm for SpaceX Wednesday (Feb. 11) with the launch of a long-delayed space weather satellite on a million-mile trek into deep space. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched into orbit at 6:03 p.m. EST (2303 GMT) carrying the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), a satellite designed to serve as an early-warning system for potentially dangerous solar storms. SpaceX was initially schedule to deliver the satellite on Sunday, but a series of delays pushed the launch to today. Video of the SpaceX launch showed the rocket soaring serenely into the sunset sky above its Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch site in Florida.

SpaceX rocket blasts off to put weather satellite into deep space

Tests planned on mysterious 'milky rain' in U.S. Pacific Northwest

By Courtney Sherwood PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) - Scientists from two U.S. Pacific Northwest laboratories plan to conduct tests of unusual precipitation that fell across the region over the weekend in hopes of pinpointing the origins of so-called "milky rain" that has mystified residents, officials said on Wednesday. Officials at both the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Benton Clean Air Agency, both in Washington state, said they had collected samples of the rain, which left a powdery residue on cars across a wide swath of the two states. Scientists at the Richland lab said they believe the rain may have carried volcanic ash from an erupting volcano in Japan, while the clean air agency said its staffers believe dust from central Oregon was the culprit. The National Weather Service has said it believes the powdery rain was most likely a byproduct of dust storms hundreds of miles away in Nevada, although it could not rule out volcanic ash from Japan as a possible culprit.

Depression in Teachers Impacts Classroom Learning

Elementary school teachers who have more symptoms of depression may have a negative influence on some students' academic performance, a new study suggests. In the small study, third-grade teachers who were struggling with symptoms of depression — such as poor appetite, restless sleep, crying spells and feeling like a failure — were generally less likely to create and maintain a high-quality classroom environment for their students compared with teachers who had fewer signs of depression. The research also showed that students who had weak math skills tended to be more affected by their teachers' depressive symptoms and the poorer-quality classroom environment. In contrast, the performance of their classmates with stronger math skills was not affected by the learning environment.

Alcohol May Help Elderly Women, But Not Men, Live Longer

Despite what you may have heard, the only older adults who get health benefits from drinking alcohol are women ages 65 or older, according to a new study of people over age 50. They found that in women ages 65 and older, those who drank moderately lived longer than those who never drank.

Baby Born Pregnant with Her Own Twins

A baby born in Hong Kong was pregnant with her own siblings at the time of her birth, according to a new report of the infant's case. "Weird things happen early, early in the pregnancy that we just don't understand," said Dr. Draion Burch, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Pittsburgh, who goes by Dr. Drai. The World Health Organization considers a tiny fetus found within an infant to be a kind of teratoma, or tumor, rather than a normally developing fetus. The newborn baby was referred to Dr. Yu Kai-man, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong, because the baby was suspected to have a tumor, according to the case report.

Opportunity Rover on Mars to Hit Marathon Milestone Soon

NASA's long-lived Opportunity Mars rover is about to run a marathon on the Red Planet. Opportunity has now covered 26.094 miles (41.994 kilometers) since touching down on Mars in January 2004, leaving the rover just 660 feet (200 meters) shy of the marathon milestone, NASA officials said today (Feb. 10). Opportunity should surpass the milestone when it reaches its next destination along the western rim of the 14-mile-wide (22 km) Endeavour Crater. "When Opportunity was in its prime mission 11 years ago, no one imagined this vehicle surviving a Martian winter, let alone completing a marathon on Mars," Opportunity project manager John Callas, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement.

Self-Driving Vehicles Could Cut Car Ownership Nearly in Half, Report Finds

In the not-too-distant future, the typical picture of a big American household in the suburbs might include just one car in the driveway: A new report finds that self-driving cars have the potential to cut U.S. car ownership nearly in half. For the report, Brandon Schoettle and Michael Sivak of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute looked at 2009 data from the U.S. National Household Travel Survey, which found that 31.9 percent of households had one car, 41.6 percent had two cars and 26.5 percent had three or more vehicles. Only 14.7 percent had two drivers with overlapping trips, and less than 2 percent of households reported conflicting schedules that required three or more cars. This means the average number of cars per household is currently 2.1, but the minimum number of vehicles needed in a household is 1.2, on average, according to Schoettle and Sivak's analysis.

Did Ocean's Big Burps End Last Ice Age?

A massive outpouring of carbon dioxide from the deep ocean may have helped end the last ice age, scientists report today. Carbon dioxide levels are lower during an ice age and higher when an ice age ends. "The oceans are leaking carbon dioxide to the atmosphere," said study co-author Gavin Foster from the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. A certain chemical ratio involving boron is a proxy for the carbon dioxide concentration in seawater thousands of years ago, when the microbes lived and died.

Happy Words Dominate Most Languages

A team of scientists used Big Data techniques to examine a massive amount of data on 10 languages, from Korean Twitter feeds to Russian literature, and found that the most commonly used words in each language were all skewed toward the positive. This positive bias in language "is not what people think when they read the paper or listen to music on the radio or read YouTube comments," said Christopher Danforth, an applied mathematician at the University of Vermont and co-author of the study. "The concept has been around for a while that maybe we are hard-wired to communicate in a way that encourages us to get along," Danforth told Live Science. In the new study, Danforth and his team took a more data-driven approach.

World's First Robot-Staffed Hotel to Open in Japan

What if you could check into a hotel, have your luggage carried to your room and order a coffee — all with help from a team of robots? A new hotel at a theme park in Nagasaki, Japan, hopes to make that dream a reality. The Henn-na Hotel (whose name means "strange hotel") will be partially staffed by androids that work as reception attendants, robot waiters, cleaning staff and a cloakroom attendant, The Telegraph reported. Developed by Japan's Osaka University and manufactured by the Japanese robotics company Kokoro, many of the "Actroid" robots resemble a young Japanese woman.

Firefighting Robots Could Help US Navy Snuff Out Fires at Sea

A prototype of an adult-size firefighting bot was unveiled this week at the Naval Future Force Science and Technology Expo in Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the exposition was the perfect place to show off a futuristic robot equipped to fight fires at sea. Standing on two "legs," SAFFiR is about the size of an adult man, measuring 5 feet 10 inches (1.8 meters) tall and weighing about 140 lbs. (64 kilograms). Dexterous enough to hold a fire hose, SAFFiR can both detect and put out a blaze. Engineering students from the Terrestrial Robotics Engineering and Controls Lab and the Extreme Environments, Robotics & Materials Laboratory at Virginia Tech created the firefighting bot as part of a Navy initiative aimed at helping sailors fight fires at sea.

Polyamory Stigma Lessens with Familiarity

Chances are, the more you know about the relationship style called polyamory, the more accepting you are of such setups, according to new research. "If people know even one gay person that they like in their life — a friend, a relative — their attitudes are much more favorable," said study researcher Traci Giuliano, a psychologist at Southwestern University in Texas. Likewise, the study found that "the more aware people were of polyamory, the more positive their attitudes were," Giuliano told Live Science. Polyamory is often confused with swinging, but the terms are not interchangeable.

People with Mental Disorders Risk an Early Death

People with mental disorders are two times more likely to die early than their peers in the general population — and not just because of factors like suicide, a new study suggests. More than half of the early deaths analyzed in the study were blamed on natural causes, such as acute and chronic illnesses like heart disease. "I think it's an important study that's drawing attention to the general health risk that's associated with a range of psychiatric disorders," said Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, who wasn't involved in the study. There are hundreds of studies going back decades that produced data on the mortality rates of people with mental health disorders, such as schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder.

Waiting for Mr. Right May Be an Evolutionary Wrong

"Primitive humans were likely forced to bet on whether or not they could find a better mate," study author Chris Adami, a microbiologist at Michigan State University, said in a statement. The whole population may have benefited from the fact that a range of behaviors evolved, with some people willing to take more risks, and others less so, Adami said.

NASA Sun-Watching Probe Celebrates 5 Years in Space (Videos)

A prolific NASA's sun observatory is celebrated its fifth year in space this week, and the space agency marked the milestone with two new videos celebrating the probe's images and scientific accomplishments. Indeed, the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), one of three instruments flying aboard SDO, captured its 100 millionth sun photo last month. "There have now been more than 2,000 scientific papers published based on SDO data," SDO project scientist Dean Pesnell, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. NASA released two videos Wednesday to celebrate the mission's five-year anniversary.

Hillary Clinton on vaccines: 'The science is clear'

Hillary Rodham Clinton is tweaking Republicans who say vaccinations should be optional, writing on social media that vaccines protect the lives of children. Clinton says on Twitter, "The science is ...

How Many Licks Does It Take to Get to the Center of a Lollipop?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a lollipop? Science now has an answer to the famous question asked in the iconic Tootsie Roll Pop commercial: about 1,000. Researchers at New York University arrived at the number by custom-making their own candy spheres and cylinders to test how materials dissolve in a flow. "But then, the flow starts to dissolve the solid, so now something about the flow is being imprinted on the solid object," Ristroph told Live Science.

Worst Megadroughts in 1,000 Years Threaten US

Before this century ends, the Southwest and Central Plains states are likely to shrivel under a decades-long megadrought worse than those that ended the Ancestral Pueblo civilization in the last millennia, a new study finds. Based on tree-ring records, scientists know that severe droughts coincided with the collapse of the Ancestral Pueblo culture. After analyzing climate models that include historical records and looking at drought trends revealed in tree rings over the last 1,000 years, scientists predict a strong possibility of megadroughts before 2100 in the Southwest and Central Plains. There is an 85 percent chance of a drought lasting 35 years or more between 2050 and 2100, said study co-author Toby Ault, a climate scientist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

New development goals risk failure without clearer targets, scientists warn

By Magdalena Mis LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - U.N. development goals for 2030 risk failure without clearer, more measurable targets that are based on the latest scientific evidence, researchers warned on Thursday. World leaders are due to adopt later this year a set of new development objectives, such as ending hunger, promoting healthy lives and tackling climate change, to replace eight expiring U.N. Millennium Development Goals. "Having robust targets that are clearly specified is key for the monitoring," said Anne-Sophie Stevance, lead coordinator of the report by the International Council for Science and the International Social Science Council. The study said only a third of the targets was well defined and based on latest scientific evidence, while more than half needed more work and 17 percent were weak or unneccessary.

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