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Saturday, March 21, 2015

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DIY robotics device developed

It's a revolution in robotics that makes building your own personal robot a reality for the masses. The new device developed by Polish scientists Dominik Nowak and Radoslaw Jarema of the Husarion Company, acts as a robot's central nervous system and provides people with the hardware and software to build almost any type of robot they can think of.. ... So you don't need any programming or engineering skills.

U.S., United Arab Emirates move forward on space cooperation

The United States and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to work toward greater civil and national security space cooperation after officials from the two countries met in Washington this week, the U.S. State Department said on Friday. The officials reviewed "a broad list of potential areas of space cooperation," department spokesman Jeff Rathke said in a statement.

Flight to Totality: How I Chased the Total Solar Eclipse of 2015 on a Jet

A total eclipse of the sun on Friday (March 20) thrilled skywatchers across Europe, Africa and Asia where it was visible, but nowhere was the view as perfect as aboard a chartered jet soaring over the top of the world. The reason was that the sun was situated almost directly behind the planes, mostly precluding us from getting a good view of the promised sky show.

'Haunting' Pony Uterus Wins Top Prize in Medical Image Contest

The pony uterus was one of 20 health and medical images to win top honors in the 14th annual competition sponsored by the Wellcome Trust, a research-funding agency. The judges of the 14th annual image contest were unanimous in their choice for first prize, noting the emotional response evoked by the pony uterus image. Michael Frank, of the Royal Veterinary College, captured the winning photograph, revealing the uterus of the 5-month-pregnant New Forest pony specimen preserved in formalin at the Anatomy Museum of the Royal Veterinary College in London.

Mars One Colony Project Delays Manned Red Planet Mission to 2026

The private colonization project Mars One has pushed its planned launch of the first humans toward the Red Planet back by two years, to 2026. The delay was necessitated by a lack of investment funding, which has slowed work on a robotic precursor mission that Mars One had wanted to send toward the Red Planet in 2018, Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp said in a new video posted today (March 19). Mars One, a Netherlands-based nonprofit, awarded contracts to aerospace firms Lockheed Martin and Surrey Satellite Technology to work on the lander and orbiter, respectively.

Arctic Sea Ice's Winter Peak Is Lowest on Record

Arctic sea ice hit its annual peak early this year, and climate scientists say the region's below-average ice conditions made this year's maximum extent the lowest on record. Every year, Arctic sea ice — ice that forms and floats in Arctic waters — grows during the winter and typically reaches its peak in March. A new report from the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC), however, reveals this year's Arctic sea ice likely reached its maximum extent earlier than expected, on Feb. 25. At this peak, sea ice covered 5.61 million square miles (14.54 million square kilometers) — the lowest maximum extent since satellite record keeping began in 1979.

Richard III Reburial Celebration Starts Sunday

More than 500 years after he was buried in a hastily dug grave in Leicester, England, Richard III is getting a proper funeral. On Sunday (March 22), Richard's fans will kick off a week of events complete with fireworks, choirs and solemn processions to celebrate the reburial of the medieval king. Richard's lead-lined oak coffin coffin will make its first public appearance at 10:50 a.m. local time (6:50 a.m. EST) Sunday as it leaves a building at the University of Leicester, the institute where scientists had been studying Richard's remains for the past two years. Then, Richard's coffin will be brought to Leicester Cathedral, the king's final resting place.

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Friday, March 20, 2015

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Big ancient land-dwelling croc inspired 'abject terror'

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The "Carolina butcher" has been found and is just as scary as the name suggests. Scientists on Thursday said they had unearthed fossils in North Carolina of a big land-dwelling croc that lived about 231 million years ago, walked on its hind legs and was a top land predator right before the first dinosaurs appeared. "Abject terror," said North Carolina State University paleontologist Lindsay Zanno, who led the research published in the journal Scientific Reports. It was a very early member of the croc lineage and was unlike today's crocs.

European Satellites to Watch Total Solar Eclipse from Space

A fleet of European satellites will chase the only total solar eclipse of 2015 from space on Friday (March 20) in a bid to capture truly out-of-this-world views of the celestial event. The European Space Agency's Proba minisatellites will observe Friday's total solar eclipse — which also coincides with the first day of northern spring — with one spacecraft watching the moon as it blocks the sun while others track the moon's shadow on the Earth's surface. The Proba-2 sun-watching satellite is high enough off the ground — 510 miles (820 kilometers) — to observe a total solar eclipse twice for a few dozen seconds each time, ESA officials said. Friday's eclipse of the sun is one of two solar eclipses in 2015, but the only one in which the moon will appear to completely block the sun.

Eclipse sweeps across Atlantic, visible only from remote islands

By Gerhard Mey TORSHAVN (Reuters) - A solar eclipse swept across the Atlantic Ocean on Friday with the moon set to block out the sun for a few thousand sky gazers on remote islands with millions more in Europe, Africa and Asia getting a partial celestial show. The moon's shadow fell south of Greenland at 0741 GMT (0341 ET) and sped eastwards towards the Faroe Islands and the Norwegian Arctic islands of Svalbard, where hotels have been sold out for years to fans of the rare total eclipse. "I've seen aurora, I've seen some volcano eruptions, but the total eclipse is still the most spectacular thing I've ever seen.

Why Spring Gets About 30 Seconds Shorter Every Year

At that exact moment, which is called the vernal equinox, the Earth's axis will reach a halfway mark, where it points neither toward the sun (as it does on the summer solstice) nor away from the sun (as it does on the winter solstice), said Gavin Schmidt, the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. But for thousands of years, spring has been losing time in the Northern Hemisphere. This year, summer is the longest season, with 93.65 days, followed by spring with 92.76 days, autumn with 89.84 days and winter with 88.99 days, said Larry Gerstman, an amateur astronomer in New York. In the year 3000, the seasonal lengths will have shifted in the Northern Hemisphere: summer will be 93.92 days, while spring will be 91.97 days, autumn 90.61 days and winter 88.74 days, Gerstman said.

Spectacular Total Solar Eclipse Kicks Off First Day of Spring (Photos, Video)

A rare total solar eclipse dimmed the skies above a small swath of the top of the world today (March 20), creating an incredible sight on the first day of spring for skywatchers lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to see it. Photos of the total solar eclipse of 2015 show the darkened sun as the moon blocked out its light as seen from the Earth. The Friday solar eclipse took place on the March equinox, kicking off the spring season in the Northern Hemisphere and fall in the south. The eclipse also happened to occur during a supermoon (when the moon is closest to Earth in its orbit), but the moon was in its new phase and a large dark disk during the eclipse.

'Blood Moon' May Have Shone on Richard III's Dead Body

In just a matter of days, Richard III will get a long-overdue royal burial in Leicester, England. Richard's two-year reign ended when he died on Aug. 22, 1485, during the Battle of Bosworth Field, the decisive fight in the Wars of the Roses, an English civil war. Rather, historical sources indicate that Richard's gravely injured body was stripped naked and carried by horseback to Leicester to be put on a humiliating display for several days under the arches of the Church of the Annunciation. When archaeologists found it in 2012, they discovered Richard's skeleton buried in a hastily dug grave under the floor of the ruins of a monastery known as Grey Friars in Leicester.

Flat CO2 Emissions Not Enough to Curb Climate Change, Experts Say

Global emissions of carbon dioxide — one of the leading causes of global warming — stalled in 2014, marking the first time in 40 years that there was no climb in CO2 emissions during a time of economic growth. In fact, some scientists say that the findings, announced last week by the International Energy Agency (IEA), represents only one data point and that the overall trend in carbon dioxide emissions is continuing upward. Global CO2 emissions have stalled three times in the 40 years in which the IEA has been collecting data: in the early 1980s, in 1992 and in 2009. This kind of separation between economic growth and CO2 emissions could be a hopeful sign, according to groups dedicated to combatting climate change.

Spring Skywatching: Spot Canis Major, the Big Cosmic Dog

Look southward just after the sky gets dark at this time of year, and you will be sure to see Sirius shining brightly. If Sirius is the Dog's eye, the constellation's nose is marked by the star Mirzam.

Omega-3 Supplements May Help Boys with ADHD

Boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may benefit slightly from omega-3 fatty acid supplements, a new study from the Netherlands suggests. The study involved 80 boys ages 8 to 14, about half of whom had been diagnosed with ADHD. The children consumed either a margarine enriched with omega-3 fatty acids, or a regular margarine, every day for 16 weeks. At the end of the study, the boys who'd consumed the omega-3 supplement saw a reduction in their attention problems — as rated by their parents — compared with those who did not consume the supplement.

Rare Case: Woman Dies After Yellow-Fever Vaccine

A woman in Oregon who received the yellow fever vaccine developed a rare and ultimately fatal reaction to the shot, according to a new report of the case. The woman, who was in her 60s, was previously healthy and received the yellow fever vaccine before a trip she was planning to take to South America, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She also had yellow fever virus genetic material in multiple organs, and in her blood. Doctors determined that the woman died from a condition called yellow fever vaccine-associated viscerotropic disease (YEL-AVD), which is a serious reaction to the yellow fever vaccine in which the virus replicates out of control.

Astronauts Snap Amazing Total Solar Eclipse Photos from Space

Astronauts on the International Space Station caught sight of an amazing solar eclipse today (March 20), and they have the photos to prove it. European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti took a break from her experiments on the station today to take some great pictures of the total solar eclipse. "Took a peek out the window between experiments," Cristoforetti said in a series of posts on Twitter. NASA's Terry Virts — Cristoforetti's fellow crewmember on the orbiting outpost — also snapped a photo of the solar eclipse just as the sun rose above Earth's horizon.

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Thursday, March 19, 2015

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Darwin's 'Strangest Animals' Finally Placed on Family Tree

The origins of two wacky beasts that Darwin dubbed the "strangest animals ever discovered" had remained a mystery for some 180 years. The new study reveals that these ungulates (hooved animals) native to South America descended from an ancient group of mammals called the condylarths — a sister group to the perissodactyls, which includes horses, tapirs and rhinos. Charles Darwin first collected the two species, in the genuses Macrauchenia and Toxodon, during his South American voyage on a ship called the Beagle. Famed for first postulating evolution, Darwin "soon recognized that these gigantic mammals might provide clues to his understanding of species formation," Porter told Live Science.

Mystery of Darwin's strange South American mammals solved

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - To 19th century British naturalist Charles Darwin, they were the strangest animals yet discovered, one looking like a hybrid of a hippo, rhino and rodent and another resembling a humpless camel with an elephant's trunk. Ever since Darwin first collected their fossils about 180 years ago, scientists had been baffled about where these odd South American beasts that went extinct just 10,000 years ago fit on the mammal family tree. Researchers said on Wednesday a sophisticated biochemical analysis of bone collagen extracted from fossils of the two mammals, Toxodon and Macrauchenia, demonstrated that they were related to the group that includes horses, tapirs and rhinos. Some scientists previously thought the two herbivorous mammals, the last of a successful group called South American ungulates, were related to mammals of African origin like elephants and aardvarks or other South American mammals like armadillos and sloths.

Bug-Eyed Catfish Named for Greedo in 'Star Wars'

A catfish with bulging eyes has been named after Greedo, the cute "Star Wars" character with similar bulbous eyes, a tapirlike snout and funky-green skin. Researchers discovered the armored catfish with a sucker mouth, now called Peckoltia greedoi, along Brazil's Gurupi River in 1998. Jonathan Armbruster, biological sciences professor and curator of fishes at the Auburn University Museum of Natural History, realized Greedo was a fitting name after he and colleagues were examining a specimen of the species that was collected in 2005. One of his colleagues in the department of biological sciences, Chris Hamilton, "looked at the specimen and said, 'that looks like that guy from "Star Wars,'" Armbruster said in a statement.

How to Safely Observe the Total Solar Eclipse This Week

A spectacular solar eclipse will be visible in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa on Friday (March 20), but if you live in those visibility areas, make sure you're prepared to practice safe eclipse viewing before you head outside. Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield.

Hidden Channels Beneath East Antarctica Could Cause Massive Melt

A glacier the size of California in East Antarctica is in danger of melting away, which could lead to an extreme thaw increases sea levels by about 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) worldwide if the glacier vanishes, a new study finds. Researchers have found two seafloor channels underneath the floating ice shelf of Totten Glacier in East Antarctica. The channels may let the warmest waters near the glacier to enter beneath the floating ice shelf, causing the rapid thinning of the ice shelf observed to date, the scientists said. As the ice shelf thins, the point where the glacier starts to float will retreat, raising the sea level, and exposing more ice to the ocean, said the study's lead author, Jamin Greenbaum, a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics.

Could a Cyanide-Laced Letter Have Harmed Obama?

A package that was sent to the White House and tested positive for traces of cyanide likely would not have harmed anyone, scientists say. Though cyanide is a deadly poison, this particular attack was unlikely to have sickened anyone, said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a chemical-weapons expert with SecureBio, a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) security firm based in the United Kingdom. That's because the form the cyanide likely came in — a white, powdery substance called sodium cyanide — typically must be ingested to cause harm, de Bretton-Gordon said. People handling mail at the White House probably wear gloves and follow strict protocols when coming into contact with packages, so they would be unlikely to have the necessary exposure to cause harm, he added.

Oddball 'Crystal' Survived Crash to Earth Inside Meteorite

A bizarre crystal-like mineral recently found in a meteorite that crashed to Earth perhaps 15,000 years ago adds more support for the idea that the fragile structure can survive in nature. The newfound mineral is called a "quasicrystal" because it resembles a crystal, but the atoms are not arranged as regularly as they are in real crystals. The quasicrystal hitched a ride to Earth on a meteorite that zipped from space through Earth's atmosphere and crashed to the ground. "The difference between crystals and quasicrystals can be visualized by imagining a tiled floor," said according to a statement by Princeton University in a press release.

Rocket Launch Is a Blast for First-Timer

On Thursday night, for the first time in my life, I got to watch a multi-ton rocket — literally a well-engineered bomb, to which some very smart people strapped a billion dollar science experiment — claw its way through the atmosphere with such force that it countered the pull of Earth's gravity and reached the region called outer space. The launch took place right on schedule at 10:44 p.m. EDT on Thursday, March 12 (0244 March 13 GMT), from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, sending NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale mission on its way into space.

Gem Engraved with Goddess' Image Found Near King Herod's Mausoleum

A translucent orange gem engraved with an image of a goddess of hunting has been found near a mausoleum built by Herod the Great, the king of Judea who ruled not long before the time of Jesus. Researchers say the ring and gem were likely worn by a Roman soldier who was stationed at the site long after Herod's death. Herod, who lived from 73 B.C. to 4 B.C., ruled as king of Judea, with support from the Roman Empire. He constructed a palace complex known as the Herodium about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) south of Jerusalem.

9-Foot 'Butcher Crocodile' Likely Ruled Before Dinosaurs

A 9-foot-tall beast with bladelike teeth once stalked the warm and wet environs of what is now North Carolina some 230 million years ago, before dinosaurs came onto the scene there, scientists have found. They named it Carnufex, meaning "butcher" in Latin, because of its long skull, which resembles a knife, and its bladelike teeth, which it likely used to slice flesh off the bones of prey, said lead study author Lindsay Zanno, of NC State University and the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. The large creature reveals not only one of the earliest crocodylomorphs, a group that includes today's crocodiles and their close relatives, but also highlights the diversity of top predators of the time. Zanno and her colleagues discovered parts of the skull, spine and arm bone of the creature while digging in the Pekin Formation in Chatham County, North Carolina.

Rare Copy of Old Testament Reunited with 'Twin' in Israel

After its publication in 1677, the book bounced among scholars, landed in Egypt and finally fell into the hands of Micha Shagrir, an Israeli film producer and director. Shagrir died in February, but his family recently donated the text to the University of Haifa in northern Israel, which already has a near-duplicate copy of the rare text in its collection, according to a statement from the university. The Old Testament is also known as the Tanakh, an acronym that includes the Torah (the five books of Moses), Nevi'im (prophets) and Ketuvim (writings) — or TaNaKh. However, the newfound Tanakh wouldn't have graced synagogues, said Yossi Ziegler, academic director of the University of Haifa's Younes and Soraya Nazarian Library.

Total Solar Eclipse on Friday: How to Watch It Live Online

Even though most people around the world won't be able to see Friday's total solar eclipse in person, anyone with an Internet connection can watch it live online thanks to two webcasts featuring the cosmic event. The March 20 total solar eclipse — the first since November 2013 — will make the daytime sky go dark for people in the Faroe Islands and parts of the North Atlantic. You can watch the 2.5-hour-long solar eclipse webcast through the Slooh website starting at 4:30 a.m. EDT (0830 GMT) on March 20. "Nothing — and I mean absolutely nothing in nature — is as powerful and spectacular as the totality of a solar eclipse," Slooh astronomer Bob Berman said in a statement.

Energy Drinks Raise Blood Pressure, Study Finds

Energy drinks might give you some pep — but they might also be priming you for heart problems, a new study finds. The effect was far more prominent in young adults who did not consume caffeine regularly, according to the study, presented March 14 at an American College of Cardiology meeting in San Diego. In this study, the research team — led by Dr. Anna Svatikova, a cardiovascular-diseases fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota — gave a can of a commercially available energy drink to 25 healthy volunteers, whose ages ranged from 19 to 40. The researchers measured the participants' heart rate and blood pressure before and after the drinks.

Hear That? Orangutans Use Hands to Amplify Calls

When danger nears, orangutans warn their group with alarm calls, and new research shows that the animals sometimes cup their hands around their muzzles, making these calls louder and deeper. "Orangutans are the only known primate besides humans to modify and enhance sound production through external manipulation," said one of the study's researchers, Adriano Lameira, a postdoctoral fellow of evolutionary anthropology at Durham University in the United Kingdom. Researchers are used to hearing such alarm calls — sometimes called a "kiss-squeak call" — as they walk through the rainforests of Sumatra and Borneo to study orangutans. The calls could be the orangutans' way of telling predators, "Don't try to sneak up on me because I've already caught you," said the study's lead researcher, Bart de Boer, a professor of language evolution at Vrije Universiteit Brussels.

This Winter Was Warmest on Record

This winter may have brought a deep freeze to much of the northeastern United States — including record-breaking snowfall in Boston — but it was the planet's warmest winter on record, climate scientists announced yesterday (March 18).

Moon Crater from Giant Lunar Crash in 2013 Finally Found (Video)

A moon-orbiting NASA spacecraft has spotted the crater produced by one of the most powerful explosions ever observed on the lunar surface. Researchers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, caught the flash on camera at the time. They asked the team working with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) instrument, which flies aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter probe (LRO), to hunt down the new hole in the ground. "They predicted how big [the crater] was going to be based on the energy, but this was all a model," LROC principal investigator Mark Robinson, of Arizona State University, said in the NASA video about the newfound moon crater.

Dude, why is my mushroom glowing? Scientists have the answer

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If you think you see a glowing mushroom, you might not be having a psychedelic hallucination. Some mushrooms indeed are bioluminescent, including one that sprouts among decaying leaves at the base of young palm trees in Brazilian coconut forests. Researchers said on Thursday that experiments in Brazil involving the big, yellow mushroom called "flor de coco," meaning coconut flower, showed its nighttime bioluminescence attracted insects and other creatures that could later spread its spores around the forest. "The answer appears to be that fungi make light so they are noticed by insects who can help the fungus colonize new habitats." Geneticist and molecular biologist Jay Dunlap of Dartmouth College's Geisel School of Medicine said bioluminescence had independently evolved many times in such diverse life forms as bacteria, fungi, insects and fish.

Dude, why is my mushroom glowing? Scientists have the answer

Supernovas Spawned Space Dust for Ancient Galaxies, Study Finds

Giant dust clouds seen in the early universe may have been created by exploding stars, a discovery that suggests supernovas were prolific space dust factories for ancient galaxies, scientists say. "One of the most surprising things is that we were not expecting to see this at all," Lau said.

Mystery of the 'Vampire Crabs' Solved

The crabs come from the island of Java in Indonesia, according to the scientists who officially describe the species in a new report. People in the aquarium trade have known of the two crab species described in the report for at least a decade, said Peter Ng, a biology professor at the National University of Singapore and an author of the report.

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