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Saturday, April 4, 2015

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World Will Get More Religious by 2050

The world is becoming more religious, as the number of agnostics and others who don't affiliate with a certain religion shrinks as a percentage of the global population. By 2050, just 13 percent of people in the world will say they are unaffiliated, compared with 16 percent who said the same in 2010, according to a new Pew Research Group survey. The United States is an exception, where more Americans are expected to flee organized religion. Islam will grow faster than any other major religion, and at a higher rate than the world population balloons, the survey found.

Shortest Total Lunar Eclipse of the Century Visible Early Saturday

Don't forget to look skyward in the early hours of Saturday morning (April 4), to catch a glimpse of the shortest total lunar eclipse of the century. The moon will be completely swallowed by Earth's shadow for just 4 minutes and 43 seconds on Saturday morning, according to NASA officials. The total eclipse begins at 6:16 a.m. EDT (1016 GMT). "For early humans, [a lunar eclipse] was a time when they were concerned that life might end, because the moon became blood red and the light that the moon provided at night might have been taken away permanently," Mitzi Adams, an astronomer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said during a news conference today (April 3).

Easter Science: 5 Odd Facts About Eggs

For instance, kiwi eggs take up about 25 percent of the mother's body, making it the largest egg of any bird, relative to its mother's body size, according to researchers at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. "If you try to push one of those eggs, because it's so heavy at one end, it will actually spin in a circle," said Paul Sweet, the ornithology collection manager at AMNH. Eggshells are largely made of calcium carbonate, which looks white to the human eye, according to "The Book of Eggs" (University of Chicago Press, 2014).

2011 Japan Tsunami Unleashed Ozone-Destroying Chemicals

The 2011 tsunami that struck Japan released thousands of tons of ozone-destroying chemicals and greenhouse gases into the air, a new study shows. The damaged insulation, refrigerators, air conditioners and electrical equipment unleashed 7,275 tons (6,600 metric tons) of halocarbons, the study reported. Halocarbon emissions rose by 91 percent over typical levels in the year following the earthquake, said Takuya Saito, lead study author and senior researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba, Japan. The six halocarbons measured in the study are a group of chemicals that attack the Earth's protective ozone layer and can also contribute to global warming.

Amped-Up Atom Smasher Will Restart This Weekend

It's a great day for particle physics fans: The world's largest atom smasher has been cleared to start running again as early as this weekend. After a two-year hiatus, researchers and engineers planned to restart the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) last week, but an electrical short delayed the process. Scientists quickly found the glitch: a small piece of metal lodged in the wiring of one of the LHC's powerful electromagnets. "It's a bit like deliberately blowing a fuse," Paul Collier, head of beams at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which manages the LHC, told Nature News.

Bizarre Syndrome Makes Visitors to Jerusalem Go Crazy

As Christians and Jews around the world prepare to celebrate the holidays of Easter and Passover, many will flock to the city of Jerusalem. Some psychiatrists have dubbed this condition "Jerusalem syndrome," and say it happens in people who have no prior history of mental illness. "I'd never heard of it before," admitted Simon Rego, director of psychology training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. Jerusalem syndrome was first identified in 2000.

For Some Kids, Easter Egg Hunts Pose Allergy Risk

Several children in Florida experienced allergic reactions after they secretly ate chocolate during an Easter egg hunt, without their parents realizing it, according to a new report of the cases. The four children — two boys and two girls, ages 4 to 7 years old — had all previously been diagnosed with a nickel allergy, a condition in which people experience skin rashes when they come in contact with the metal. In each child's case, their symptoms had improved for two to five months, but then they all wound up at the doctor with flare-ups about two to five days after that year's Easter Sunday. "They all came in on the same two-day period," said Dr. Sharon Jacob, a dermatologist who treated the children at the University of Miami.

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Friday, April 3, 2015

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Deadly snakes 'milked' to create potent new anti-venom

By Mathew Stock LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND / KADUNA, NIGERIA - The puff adder is one of sub-Saharan Africa's most deadly snakes. The venom extracted here is being used to create a potent new anti-venom that could treat bites from every poisonous snake found in the region. Dr. Robert Harrison is leading the research at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, where they've collected 21 of the region's most lethal snake species - 450 animals in total. "32,000 people are dying from snake bite every year in sub-Saharan Africa.

Oh, baby: study shows how surprises help infants learn

"Our hypothesis was that infants might be using these surprising events as special opportunities to learn, and we show that is indeed the case," said cognitive psychologist Aimee Stahl of Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, whose research appears in the journal Science. The study involved 110 11-month-olds, with roughly equal numbers of girls and boys.

Joni Mitchell's Mysterious Skin Disease: What Causes Morgellons?

Joni Mitchell was hospitalized on Tuesday after being found unconscious in her apartment, according to the 71-year-old singer's website. In recent years, Mitchell has said that she suffers from many ailments, including a strange and controversial condition called Morgellons disease, The New York Times reported. People who suffer from Morgellons say they have a bizarre range of symptoms including sensations of crawling or stinging on and under their skin, skin sores and the appearance of stringlike fibers that seem to sprout from the sores, according to the Mayo Clinic.

How a Zero Gravity Cocktail Glass Could Be Space Hospitality's Future

This is where Samuel Coniglio said he hopes to fill the gap. The long-time space tourism advocate has created a "zero-gravity" cocktail glass designed to use grooves to keep the liquid in. Coniglio's group, called Cosmic Lifestyle Corp., launched a Kickstarter campaign to get funds and publicity for their idea. While fundraising has been slow — a little more than $3,400 raised of the $30,000 needed, with about a day to go — Coniglio said the publicity alone has been a huge success for the project.

Manned Mars Mission Plan: Astronauts Could Orbit by 2033, Land by 2039

NASA could get astronauts to Mars orbit by 2033 and onto the Red Planet's surface by 2039, a new report by a nongovernmental organization suggests. At a news conference this morning (April 2), representatives of The Planetary Society presented the results of a workshop organized to discuss the feasibility and cost of a crewed mission to orbit the Martian moon Phobos in 2033, leading up to a crewed landing on the Red Planet in 2039. They concluded that such a plan could indeed fit within NASA's human space exploration budget. "We believe we now have an example of a long-term, cost-constrained, executable humans-to-Mars program," Scott Hubbard, a professor in the Stanford University Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a member of The Planetary Society's board of directors, said in a statement.

U.S. to halt expanded use of some insecticides amid honey bee decline

(Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Thursday it was unlikely to approve new or expanded uses of certain pesticides while it evaluates the risks they may pose to honey bees. The EPA notice came the day after Oregon's largest city suspended the use of the pesticides on its property to protect honey bees. The unanimous vote on Wednesday by the Portland City Commission came despite protests from farmers, nursery owners and others who claimed the insecticide was crucial in combating pests that destroy crops and other plants. Portland is among at least eight municipalities that have banned the chemicals. The EPA is conducting an assessment of the six types of neonicotinoids and their impact on honey bees, with its evaluation of four expected by 2018 and the remaining two a year later.

What It Would Be Like to Live on Uranus' Moons Titania and Miranda

Uranus would be a fascinating planet to visit, but living there would be extremely difficult. In all, Uranus has 27 known moons, and its five largest satellites are often considered its "major moons." If we wanted to set up permanent bases on Uranus's satellites, Titania and Miranda are great targets — Titania presents the strongest gravity (almost 4 percent of Earth's), and Miranda has a surface ripe for exploration. "When [Voyager 2] flew past in 1986, it was winter and dark on the whole northern hemispheres of all the moons, so we could only see a portion of their southern hemispheres," Jeff Moore, a planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in California said. Images from Voyager 2 show that Titania's southern hemisphere has numerous craters and tectonic landforms, including canyons and faults, some of which could be interesting locations to visit.

What It Would Be Like to Live on Saturn's Moons Titan and Enceladus

"If you were in the outer solar system and you had to make an emergency landing, go to Titan," NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay told Space.com. Titan is the only moon in our solar system with a dense atmosphere and thick cloud cover.

Super Species: Animals with Extreme Powers Invade Museum

"Given enough time, natural selection can produce some pretty wondrous things," said exhibit curator John Sparks, an ichthyologist at AMNH. As individuals reproduce, their offspring may have genetic mutations that neither of their parents had.

Total Lunar Eclipse Saturday: How to See the Blood Moon

Turnabout is fair play: The full moon will be totally eclipsed early Saturday morning (April 4), just 15 days after it caused a total eclipse of the sun. On that date, the so-called "supermoon" will take a deeper plunge through the umbra and will also be moving close to its maximum orbital velocity.

Anne Frank Likely Died Earlier Than Believed

Anne Frank, the young Jewish teenager whose diary became one of the most iconic portrayals of the Holocaust, likely died about a month earlier than her official death date, a new historical analysis finds. The Frank sisters died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, but the exact dates of their deaths are unknown. Now, the Anne Frank House, an organization devoted to preserving Anne's memory and her family's hiding place in Amsterdam, has released a new study that puts Anne's death in February 1945, earlier than previously believed. During the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, Annelies Marie Frank and her family spent two years living in a secret apartment in the building where her father, Otto, worked.

Cleaning with Bleach May Lead to Childhood Infections

A splash of bleach can kill germs on a kitchen counter, but it may also cause health problems in children, a new study finds. Children in the study who lived in homes or went to schools where bleach was used for cleaning had higher rates of influenza, tonsillitis and other infections, compared with kids who weren't exposed to bleach, the researchers found. The researchers surveyed parents of more than 9,100 children ages 6 to 12 living in the Netherlands, Finland and Spain. The parents answered questions about how often in the past year their children had several infections, including the flu, tonsillitis, sinusitis, bronchitis, otitis and pneumonia.

Odd Tune: Trumpeter's Neck Swells Like a Bullfrog

The patient had seen numerous doctors, but none could find anything wrong with him, even after they ran a CT scan of his neck, said the report's lead author, Rachel Edmiston, an EMT trainee at Central Manchester University Hospital in the United Kingdom. They also asked him to maintain good oral hygiene and healthy eating habits, so that he could avoid bacterial overgrowth in the affected, bubblelike area.

Drug-Resistant Stomach Bug Increasing in US

The bacteria caused several outbreaks in the United States in the past year, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bacteria, called Shigella sonnei, can cause diarrhea, stomach cramps and fever and is typically treated with the antibiotic ciprofloxacin. There was also an outbreak of 95 cases in San Francisco that was not linked with international travel. Shigella causes about half a million cases of diarrhea in the United States each year, and the disease can be spread from person to person, or through contaminated food or water, the CDC says.

Eerie Green Space Clouds Glow in New Hubble Photos

The eight eerie objects betray the past presence of quasars, the most luminous objects in the universe, whose powerful beams of radiation lend the clouds their ethereal glow, researchers said. "In each of these eight images, a quasar beam has caused once-invisible filaments in deep space to glow through a process called photoionization," officials with the European Space Agency (ESA), which partners with NASA on the Hubble project, wrote in a statement. "Oxygen, helium, nitrogen, sulphur and neon in the filaments absorb light from the quasar and slowly re-emit it over many thousands of years," the officials added. This process can result in a quasar, which blasts jets of high-energy radiation and particles out into space.

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Thursday, April 2, 2015

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Rodent romance: male mice use 'love songs' to woo their women

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - "Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs. I'd like to know," Paul McCartney sings in his 1976 song "Silly Love Songs." Mice might agree. "I do think there is more going on with animal communication than we humans have been attuned to," Duke University neurobiology professor Erich Jarvis said.

Wearable Tech Is Your Doctor's Newest Assistant (Op-Ed)

As personal devices come to dominate the talk of the technology industry, now they're surging into health care. Shifting from self-help to medical help, wearable technology has the potential to make health care more efficient, convenient and effective for both patients and doctors. Whereas I normally rely on my patients to tell me how they're feeling, with the help of wearable devices, I will soon know how they're feeling, and possibly even why, before my patients walk into the exam room.

Supermoon vs. Minimoon: Sizing Up Earth's Satellite

Robert Vanderbei is a professor in the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton University and co-author, with J. Richard Gott, of the National Geographic book "Sizing Up the Universe" (National Geographic, 2010). The so-called "supermoon" has an impressive name, but just how super is the actual event? Instead of lying at the center of that ellipse, the Earth lies at one of its two foci — hence, as the moon orbits the Earth, about half of the time it is a little closer to the planet, and half the time it is a little further away. On average, the moon's distance from Earth is 239,228 miles (385,000 kilometers).

As China Saves its 'Smiling' Porpoise, It Saves Its People (Op-Ed)

Karin Krchnak is director of the Freshwater Program at World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The Yangtze River dolphin, once known in ancient Chinese legends as representing the reincarnation of a princess, went extinct as industrialization expanded and the Yangtze's resources were pillaged. Now, a mere decade later, the Yangtze's other cetacean, the Yangtze finless porpoise, is in peril due to similar causes: Unsustainable fishing practices and depleted fish stocks, sand dredging, mining and a continued increase in pollution, among other threats. Without intervention and a shift in how China manages its freshwater resources, the Yangtze finless porpoise could vanish within the next five to 10 years.

Saving Yangtze Porpoises Can Save China (Gallery)

Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

5 Reasons Radiation Treatment has Never Been Safer (Op-Ed)

Dr. Edward Soffen is a board-certified radiation oncologist and medical director of the Radiation Oncology Department at CentraState Medical Center's Statesir Cancer Center in Freehold, New Jersey. Historically, radiation treatments have been challenged by the damage they cause healthy tissue surrounding a tumor, but new technologies are now slashing those risks. Radiation treatments may come from a machine (x-ray or proton beam), radioactive material placed in the body near tumor cells, or from a fluid injected into the bloodstream.

World's Oldest Woman Revealed Her Secret to Long Life

The world's oldest person, a 117-year-old woman in Japan named Misao Okawa, died today. Okawa was named the world's oldest person in 2013, when she was 114, according to Guinness World Records. Now, the world's oldest living person is Gertrude Weaver, a 116-year-old woman in Arkansas, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which keeps track of supercentenarians, or people older than 110. Sakari Momoi of Japan became the world's oldest living man at 111, according to the Geronotology Research Group, since the death of Dr. Alexander Imich of New York City in June 2014.

What's Next for the World's Largest Atom Smasher? How to Watch Live

Physicist Jon Butterworth, who works at the world's largest atom smasher, is intimately familiar with the drama that surrounded the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson. Butterworth will recount the trials and tribulations in the hunt for "the most wanted particle," in a lecture tonight (April 1) at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada. Butterworth is a physics professor at University College London in the United Kingdom, and a researcher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which manages the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a ring-shaped particle accelerator located underground near Geneva, Switzerland. In 2012, scientists at the LHC found evidence of the long-sought Higgs boson, an elementary particle that is thought to explain how other particles get their mass.

From Space, Typhoon Maysak's Eye Looks Like a Black Hole (Photo)

It seemed like a black hole from a Sci-Fi movie," NASA astronaut Terry Virts wrote on Twitter. Virts and his fellow astronauts have been posting pictures of the typhoon, which is expected to hit the Philippines this weekend if it doesn't change course. "Commands respect even from space," wrote Samantha Cristoforetti, an Italian astronaut with the European Space Agency who launched into space with Virts in November. As of 11 a.m. EdT today (1500 GMT), the super typhoon was 223 miles (359 km) northwest of the Micronesian island of Yap.

Lunar Lava Tubes Might Make Underground Moon Cities Possible

Earth's moon is rife with huge lava tubes – tunnels formed from the lava flow of volcanic eruptions – and new theoretical work suggests that these features could be large enough to house structurally stable lunar cities for future colonists. Purdue University researchers presented their research during the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held here March 16-20. According to Jay Melosh, a Purdue University distinguished professor of Earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences, the edges of the lava cool as it flows to form a pipe-like crust around the flowing river of lava. "There has been some discussion of whether lava tubes might exist on the moon," Melosh said in a Purdue press statement.

California Obliterates Record for Lowest Snowpack Ever

California's mountain snowpack will do little to slake the thirsty state this summer — only the tallest peaks are dusted with snow, and the most recent survey showed the driest snowpack in more than 100 years. The Sierra Nevada snowpack typically supplies 30 percent of California's water. The statewide snow records officially start in 1950, but in some areas, the records reach back to 1909, Rizzardo said. With the snowpack essentially wiped out, Gov. Jerry Brown announced California's first-ever statewide mandatory water restrictions today.

Tarantulas Have 2 Left Feet When It's Hot

Temperature can change the thickness, or viscosity, of hemolymph, said the study's senior author, Anna Ahn, an associate professor of biology at Harvey Mudd College in California.

'Alien' Camel Skeleton Discovered Along the Danube River

The skeleton of a camel that lived in the 17th century during the second Ottoman-Habsburg war has been discovered in a refuse pit in Austria. "Camels are alien species in Europe and Austria, [and] the town of Tulln is closely situated to the large river/stream of the Danube," said Alfred Galik, a researcher at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna and one of the scientists who worked on the study detailing the discovery. The "sunken ship" phrase "should bring together this buried/sunken ship of the desert — with Tulln and the Danube a place where no camels naturally appear," Galik told Live Science in an email. The camel also had unusual parents: It was born to a Bactrian camel (two-hump) dad and a dromedary (one-hump) mom, the researchers found after looking at the bones and analyzing the camel's DNA.

New Map of Global Ocean Temperatures Is a Work of Art

The paintlike swirls of the visualization, which was released earlier this month by Los Alamos National Laboratory, depict global water surface temperatures. Blue areas designate cool temperatures, and reds indicate warmer temperatures. The map shows a clear divide between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere, but finer details — including trapped regions of hot water adjacent to the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean, and warmer water in the Mediterranean — can also be seen. MPAS-O uses data from the National Oceanographic Data Center's World Ocean Circulation Experiment — the most comprehensive data set ever collected from the global ocean.

Antarctic Octopus's 'Blue Blood' Helps It Survive in Frigid Waters

Octopuses in Antarctica survive subzero temperatures because of blue pigment in their blood, a new study finds. "This is the first study providing clear evidence that the octopods' blue blood pigment, haemocyanin, undergoes functional changes to improve the supply of oxygen to tissue at subzero temperature," lead study author Michael Oellermann, a biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, said in a statement. To find out what keeps an octopus's body oxygenated, Oellermann and his colleagues compared haemocyanin levels in an Antarctic octopus species (Paraledone charcoti) and in two species that live in warmer climates (Octopus pallidus in southeast Australia and Eledone moschata in the Mediterranean). At 50 degrees F (10 degrees C), the Antarctic octopus could release far more oxygen (76.7 percent), than the two warm-water octopuses (at 33 percent for the Octopus pallidus and 29.8 percent for the Eledone moschata).

Too Much Iced Tea Blamed for Man's Kidney Failure

After a 56-year-old man experienced kidney failure, his doctors discovered that his habit of drinking excessive amounts of iced tea every day was likely the culprit, according to a new report of his case. The man's kidney function has not recovered, and he remains on dialysis, said Dr. Alejandra Mena-Gutierrez, of University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, who treated the patient and wrote the report of his case. "We are not advising against tea consumption," Mena-Gutierrez said. Tests showed that his urine had high levels of calcium oxalate crystals, which are the components of kidney stones.

Night Owls at Higher Risk of Diabetes, Other Illnesses

Night owls may enjoy staying up late, but their belated bedtimes may be a detriment to their health in middle age, a new study finds. People with late bedtimes are more likely to develop diabetes and other health problems than early birds, the researchers found. Moreover, the health risks stayed the same even for night owls who got the same amount of sleep as early risers, according to the study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Many night owls don't get enough sleep because they go to bed late but still need to wake up early in the morning, said the study's senior author, Dr. Nan Hee Kim, an endocrinologist at Korea University Ansan Hospital.

Medieval Graveyard Found Under Cambridge University

Hundreds of skeletons from a medieval graveyard have been discovered beneath Cambridge University in England. Archaeologists got a rare chance to excavate one of the largest medieval hospital burial grounds in Britain, amid a project to restore the Old Divinity School at St. John's College (part of Cambridge University). The researchers unearthed more than 400 complete burials among evidence for more than 1,000 graves. Most of the burials date to the period spanning the 13th to 15th centuries, according to Craig Cessford, an archaeologist at Cambridge University who led the excavation and published the results in the latest issue of the Archaeological Journal.

Liquid body armor tested in Poland

Scientists at a Polish company that produce body armor systems are working to implement a non-Newtonian liquid in their products. The liquid is called Shear-Thickening Fluid (STF). STF does not conform to the model of Newtonian liquids, such as water, in which the force required to move the fluid faster must increase exponentially, and its resistance to flow changes according to temperature. Instead STF hardens upon impact at any temperature, providing protection from penetration by high-speed projectiles and additionally dispersing energy over a larger area.

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