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Thursday, February 19, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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U.S. must invest to keep ahead of China in space, hearing told

By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China's space program is catching up with that of the United States and Washington must invest in military and civilian programs if it is to remain the world's dominant space power, a congressional hearing heard on Wednesday. Experts speaking to Congress's U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said China's fast advances in military and civilian space technology were part of a long-term strategy to shape the international geopolitical system to its interests and achieve strategic dominance in the Asia-Pacific. They also reflect an enthusiasm for space exploration which in the United States has faded since the Apollo Program which landed Americans on the moon in 1969, they said. "China right now is experiencing its Apollo years," Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, told the hearing.

Star Explosions Help Solve Mineral Mystery of the Universe

An explosion on the surface of a dying star has is helping to clear up a mystery behind copious amounts of lithium seen in the universe. By studying Nova Delphini 2013 (V339 Del), astronomers were able to detect a precursor to lithium, making the first direct detection of the third lightest element whose abundance had long remained in the theoretical realm. "There have been no direct observational evidence for lithium production in novae before our result," lead author Akito Tajitsu, of the National Observatory of Japan, told Space.com via email. When V339 Del was spotted by an amateur astronomer on Aug. 14, 2013, it was just beyond the limit of being visible to the naked eye, though it was visible in binoculars and telescopes.

Chinese New Year: How to See the New Moon Live Online Thursday

Whether or not you believe babies born in the Year of the Goat will have a lifetime of bad luck and unhappiness, tomorrow is a day of celestial significance. To mark the beginning of the Chinese New Year, the online Slooh Community Observatory will broadcast real-time views of the new moon on Thursday (Feb. 19). The Chinese zodiac's 12-year cycle — with each year represented by a different animal with its own virtues and flaws — is based on the lunar calendar. "Before this modern era where the moon is scarcely visible against city lights and irrelevant to our everyday lives, moonlight often made a life-or-death difference as to whether we dared venture out at night," Slooh astronomer Bob Berman said in a statement.

Marijuana Munchies May Come from Scrambled Neuron Signals

People who get "the munchies" after smoking marijuana may owe their sudden craving for food to certain neurons in the brain that are normally responsible for suppressing appetite, according to a new study on mice. The researchers also looked to see what was going on with the rest of the brain circuitry involved in appetite regulation in the mice whose hunger was stimulated. Although the investigators anticipated that the neurons that typically suppress appetite would be "turned off" by the process of appetite stimulation, instead, they saw that the appetite-suppressing neurons were being activated. "We found that these neurons, under the influence of cannabinoids, switch the chemicals that they release," study author Dr. Tamas Horvath, a professor of neurobiology at Yale University, told Live Science.

Some Racing Raindrops Break Their 'Speed Limit'

Some radical raindrops are flouting the rules: The wet-weather drips seem to be breaking a physical speed limit, sometimes falling 10 times faster than they should, scientists have found. This terminal velocity is reached when the downward tug of gravity equals the opposing force of air resistance. In 2009, physicists reported that they had discovered small raindrops falling faster than this terminal velocity. In that study, detailed in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Alexander Kostinski and Raymond Shaw of Michigan Technological University, along with Guillermo Montero-Martinez and Fernando Garcia-Garcia of the National University of Mexico, measured 64,000 raindrops, and found clusters of "superterminal" drops falling faster than they should based on their size and weight, especially as the rain became heavier.

Slimy Microbes May Have Carpeted Earth 3.2 Billion Years Ago

Nitrogen fixation involves breaking the powerful chemical bonds that hold nitrogen atoms in pairs in the atmosphere and using the resulting single nitrogen atoms to help create biologically useful molecules. Microbes that live in the roots of legume plants and in soils are key to modern nitrogen fixation. Now, scientists looking at some of the planet's oldest rocks have found evidence that life was already practicing nitrogen fixation about 3.2 billion years ago, nearly three-quarters of the way back to the birth of the planet.

Galaxy Merger Caught in Stunning Hubble Telescope Photo, Video

A spiral galaxy gets twisted out of shape after coming too close to a cosmic neighbor in a gorgeous photo captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Between 100 million and 200 million years ago, NGC 7714 drifted too close to a smaller, neighboring galaxy called NGC 7715. The resulting galaxy merger has been violent and dramatic, changing the structure and shape of both NGC 7714 and NGC 7715, researchers said. "Tell-tale signs of this brutality can be seen in NGC 7714's strangely shaped arms, and in the smoky golden haze that stretches out from the galactic center," European Space Agency (ESA) officials wrote in a description of the new image.

World's Largest Atom Smasher Returns: 4 Things It Could Find

The world's largest particle collider is gearing up for another run of smashing particles together at nearly the speed of light. After a two-year hiatus for upgrades, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will restart this year, and is expected to be twice as powerful as it was during its first run. In 2012, the LHC helped to find evidence of the Higgs boson, the particle that is thought to explain how other particles get their mass. The discovery vindicated theoretical calculations made decades ago, and bolstered the Standard Model, the current framework of particle physics.

Chemical in Plastics May Alter Boys' Genitals Before Birth

It confirms earlier findings in humans and animals that exposure to certain types of chemicals called phthalates may lead to changes in the way the male reproductive tract develops, said Dr. Russ Hauser, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, who was not involved in the new study. Phthalates are a large group of industrial chemicals used in a variety of consumer products, such as food packaging, flooring, perfumes and lotions. The changes seen in the babies in the study were small, said lead author Shanna Swan, a reproductive health scientist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. "There was nothing clinically abnormal or noticeably different about these boys," Swan told Live Science.

This State Is the Nation's Happiest for the First Time

Alaska edged out Hawaii and is now at the top of the rankings of the nation's happiest states for the first time.

Diseases affecting the poorest can be eliminated, scientists say

By Alex Whiting LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - It is a little known disease but it could make medical history if scientists' predictions are correct: yaws could completely disappear by 2020, given the right resources. Guinea worm is nearly there, and polio too could be added to the list. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday urged developing countries to invest more in tackling so-called neglected tropical diseases such as yaws, saying more investment would alleviate human misery and free people trapped in poverty. When the WHO launched mass treatment campaigns with penicillin vaccines, the number of cases plummeted by 95 percent by the end of the 1960s, according to David Mabey, an expert in yaws and professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Diseases affecting the poorest can be eliminated, scientists say

Moon, Venus, Mars Meet in Friday Night Sky: How to See It

Mars, Venus and the moon will meet up in a particularly beautiful cosmic display Friday (Feb. 20). If you've been watching the evening twilight sky over the past few weeks, you will have seen the brilliant planet Venus gradually moving away from the sun, setting slightly later every evening. At the same time, the planet Mars has been gradually moving downward toward the sun, setting slightly earlier every evening. The three cosmic bodies will form a triangle only 2 degrees across, small enough to fit into a low-power telescope's field of view.

NASA Spacecraft Spies 2 Tiny Moons of Pluto (Photos, Video)

A NASA spacecraft speeding toward an epic flyby of Pluto on July 14 has beamed home its first good looks at two moons of the dwarf planet. The New Horizons probe captured images of Nix and Hydra, two of Pluto's five known satellites, from Jan. 27 through Feb. 8, at distances ranging from 125 million miles to 115 million miles (201 million to 186 million kilometers), NASA officials said. NASA released the new footage Wednesday (Feb. 18), 85 years to the day after American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. "It's thrilling to watch the details of the Pluto system emerge as we close the distance to the spacecraft's July 14 encounter," New Horizons science team member John Spencer, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said in a statement.

Diseases affecting the poorest can be eliminated, scientists say

Shrimpy Sharks to Great Whites: Marine Animals Have Gotten Bigger Over Time

Animals tend to evolve toward a larger body size over time, and marine animals are no exception, a study suggests. In fact, the average size of marine animals has increased significantly over the past 542 million years, according to researchers who recently compared the body sizes of ocean-dwelling creatures from five major groups ranging from arthropods to vertebrates. The findings support a theory that biologists call Cope's rule, which holds that animals in a given group tend to grow larger over the course of their evolution, the researchers said. Cope's rule is named after American paleontologist Edward Cope.

Bigger is better: 19th century hypothesis gets fresh endorsement

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Renowned 19th century American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope proposed "Cope's Rule," hypothesizing that animal lineages tend to increase in body size over time. Scientists on Thursday said the most comprehensive test of "Cope's rule" ever conducted, involving 17,208 different marine animal groups spanning the past 542 million years, demonstrated a clear trend toward larger size over time.

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Wednesday, February 18, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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Ready for Takeoff? New Rules Would Limit Some Uses for Drones

The Obama administration has announced a much-anticipated set of rules to govern the use of commercial drones in the United States. But the proposed regulations would restrict some parts of the burgeoning industry — notably, drone delivery services, like the one being tested by Amazon.

What Would It Be Like to Live on Venus?

Between its desiccated, red-orange landscape and surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead, Venus is our solar system's analog to hell. Setting up a livable base on the planet is a feat far beyond our technological capabilities right now, but here's what life would be like if we could actually live on Venus. Venus is often thought of as Earth's twin sister because the size and composition of the two planets are similar. So it should come as no surprise that NASA, the Soviet space program, the European Space Agency (ESA) and others have sent numerous spacecraft to explore the planet second closest to the sun — more than 40 in all since the 1960s.

Earthquake early warning system begins testing in Pacific Northwest

By Victoria Cavaliere SEATTLE (Reuters) - Testing began on Tuesday on the first early warning system to predict earthquakes before they rattle Oregon and Washington, with a group of businesses and hospitals trying out the tool before it is made available to the public, scientists said. The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network system will emit a blaring siren and a vocal warning that says "Earthquake. Shaking to begin in ... 15 seconds," the research team from the University of Washington said in a statement. The technology will issue an alert for any earthquakes above magnitude 3, which typically occur somewhere in Washington and Oregon about every two to three weeks, it said.

Russian Supply Ship Makes 6-Hour Delivery Trip to Space Station

A robotic Russian cargo ship arrived at the International Space Station today (Feb. 17), capping off a busy week of comings and goings at the orbiting lab.

In a first for a fish, Oregon chub removed from endangered list

By Courtney Sherwood PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) - For the first time, a fish has been removed from U.S. Endangered Species Act protection as federal officials declared on Tuesday that a tiny shimmering minnow found only in an Oregon valley was no longer in danger of extinction. Millions of the two-inch (5-cm) fish, the Oregon chub, once swam in waters surrounding Western Oregon's Willamette River. Fewer than 1,000 remained in just eight wetlands in 1993 when the chub gained protection under the Endangered Species Act. The fish's resurgence shows that habitat improvement and species recovery efforts can succeed even in areas heavily impacted by agriculture and urban development, said Paul Henson, Oregon supervisor with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service.

Strongest known natural material - spider silk or limpet teeth?

Spider silk may lose its claim as the strongest known natural material after researchers found that limpet teeth have more mettle. Spider silk is hailed by scientists for its strength and structure, but researchers in Britain have discovered that limpets -- snail-like sea creatures with conical shells -- have teeth with structures so strong they could be copied and used in making cars, boats and planes. "Until now we thought that spider silk was the strongest biological material because of its super-strength and potential applications in everything from bullet-proof vests to computer electronics," said Asa Barber, a professor at Portsmouth University's school of engineering, who led the study. "But now we have discovered that limpet teeth exhibit a strength that is potentially higher." Barber's team examined the detailed mechanical behaviour of teeth from limpets with atomic force microscopy, a method used to pull apart materials all the way down to the level of the atom.

Preschoolers Who Nap May Sleep Worse at Night

For parents of young children, nap time can be the best time of the day: The house is quiet, the kids are sleeping and there's finally an hour or two of personal time. But those daytime naps could make young children less likely to sleep as well at night, at least if a new review from researchers in Australia is to be believed. And even if taking daytime naps means young children get less sleep at night, that doesn't mean that parents should ditch their preschooler's afternoon nap, said Dr. Richard Ferber, the director of the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders at Boston Children's Hospital, and the author of "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" (Touchstone, 2006). "Young children need to nap for optimal performance," Ferber told Live Science.

Scientists unveil map of 'epigenome,' a second genetic code

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) - Scientists for the first time have mapped out the molecular "switches" that can turn on or silence individual genes in the DNA in more than 100 types of human cells, an accomplishment that reveals the complexity of genetic information and the challenges of interpreting it. Researchers unveiled the map of the "epigenome" in the journal Nature on Wednesday, alongside nearly two dozen related papers. The human genome is the blueprint for building an individual person. The epigenome can be thought of as the cross-outs and underlinings of that blueprint: if someone's genome contains DNA associated with cancer but that DNA is "crossed out" by molecules in the epigenome, for instance, the DNA is unlikely to lead to cancer.

Marijuana munchies are all in the brain, U.S. study finds

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) - If recent laws legalizing marijuana in more U.S. states also boost sales of potato chips and brownies, scientists will know why: A study in mice published on Wednesday found, unexpectedly, that the active ingredients in pot essentially make appetite-curbing regions of the brain reverse functions. When that happens, neurons that ordinarily transmit a signal that means, "you're full, stop eating," instead give the brain the munchies, neurobiologists reported in the journal Nature. A 2014 study by neuroscientists in Europe, for instance, found that the active ingredients in marijuana, cannabinoids, affect the olfactory center in the brains of mice. In their study, scientists led by Tamas Horvath of Yale University focused on molecules called receptors that cannabinoids bind to and activate in the brains of both mice and men.

Vast Bed of Metal Balls Found in Deep Sea

The R/V Sonne, a German research ship, was several hundred miles east of Barbados when a mesh net meant to capture marine life instead brought up balls of manganese ore that were bigger than softballs. A remote camera later revealed that the seafloor was littered with these round manganese nodules, some the size of bowling balls. "I was surprised, because this is generally not the place you think of for manganese nodules," said Colin Devey, chief scientist for the expedition and a volcanologist at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany. This is the largest patch of manganese nodules ever found in the Atlantic, Devey said.

Sorry, Spiders: Sea Snails Make Strongest Material on Earth

The teeth of the common limpet species (Patella vulgata) are tougher than Kevlar and stronger than spider silk, researchers report in the Feb. 18 issue of The Royal Society journal Interface. "Spider silk has been winning this competition for a long time. I was surprised and excited that limpet teeth beat the winner," said lead study author Asa Barber, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Southampton in England. Though limpets leave behind only scratched rock, no one had ever tested the strength of their teeth, Barber said.

'Mirage Planets' May Complicate Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Some alien worlds might look like they're capable of hosting life as we know it on Earth, but in reality, these "mirage planets" might have burned away those chances for life, scientists think. In the past 20 years or so, astronomers have confirmed the existence of more than 1,800 planets around distant stars, and may soon prove that thousands more of these alien worlds exist. Of special interest are exoplanets in habitable zones, the regions around stars just warm enough for worlds to possess liquid water on their surfaces, as there is life virtually everywhere liquid water is found on Earth. The search for extraterrestrial life often focuses on red dwarfs, also known as M dwarf stars, which are the most common type of star in the universe.

Scientists unveil map of 'epigenome,' a second genetic code

A Fortune in Ancient Gold Coins Found Off Israel

A massive trove of thousand-year-old gold coins has been unearthed in an ancient harbor off the coast of Israel. The hoard, which was first discovered by members of an amateur scuba diving club, is the largest haul of gold coins ever unearthed in Israel. The coins were found off the coast of Caesarea, a harbor city that was built by King Herod the Great about 2,000 years ago. At the time when most of the coins were minted, Caesarea was a bustling port city that was central to the Fatimid Kingdom.

Flu Shot May Give You a Boost Against Bird Flu

Getting a seasonal flu shot may give you a bit of protection against a deadly strain of the bird flu virus, a new study suggests. The study's researchers looked at 28 people who had received annual flu shots since 2007, and measured the levels of their antibodies, which are the proteins in the immune system that bind to pathogens to render them harmless. The researchers specifically looked at 83 antibodies known to bind to H3N2, a common strain of flu that's included in the seasonal flu vaccine. They found that a small portion of these antibodies — around 7 percent — were also able to bind to the H7N9 flu virus, a new strain of bird flu that first emerged in China in 2013.

Inflammatory Bowel Disease May Be from Mom's Bacteria, not DNA

The study found that a mother mouse can pass along to her offspring a susceptibility to intestinal disorders, such as inflammatory bowel disease, by way of a gut-residing bacterium called Sutterella, the researchers reported in the journal Nature yesterday (Feb. 16). Scientists have long speculated that a mother can transfer beneficial bacteria to her offspring through the birthing process and then through breast-feeding and kissing. "The implications for mouse experiments are profound, and could help us cut through some persistent sources of confusion," in genetic research, said Dr. Thaddeus Stappenbeck, an immunologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and a co-author of the new study. Until now, most doctors have thought that IgA deficiency, seen in people with diseases such as chronic diarrhea, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, is primarily hereditary, meaning the deficiency is inherited through one's genes.

Mysterious Bright Spots Shine on Dwarf Planet Ceres (Photos)

NASA's Dawn spacecraft will have plenty of mysteries to investigate when it begins orbiting the dwarf planet Ceres next month, as the probe's latest photos attest. "As we slowly approach the stage, our eyes transfixed on Ceres and her planetary dance, we find she has beguiled us but left us none the wiser," Dawn principal investigator Chris Russell of UCLA said in a statement. The new photos, which have a resolution of 4.9 miles (7.8 km) per pixel, are the sharpest ever taken of Ceres, NASA officials said.

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