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Monday, June 8, 2015

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Interactive Map Lets You Find Dinosaur Tracks, Extinct Volcanoes

Want to trace the footsteps of dinosaurs or pinpoint the exact location of extinct volcanoes? A new interactive geological map of Texas lets people browse everything from where dinos once roamed to the whereabouts of oil and gas formations. The U.S. Geological Survey map, which can be accessed for free online, offers a unique window into the history of the ground beneath the Lone Star State.

Here's What Zapping Your Brain with Electricity Feels Like

But this was no fire ant — it was current flowing through an electrode, oozing conductive gel, that was stuck to my head. Another electrode was strapped to my left arm, and both were connected by a series of wires to a small black box containing some electronics and a couple of 9-volt batteries. Transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS, is a noninvasive form of brain stimulation that involves passing a current between electrodes on the scalp.

Why Breadwinner Spouses Are More Likely to Get Cheated On

This link between dependency and infidelity occurred in both genders but was strongest for men, perhaps because dependent men feel that their masculinity is threatened, said study leader Christin Munsch, a sociologist at the University of Connecticut. In fact, the idea for the study came about when she was talking with a male friend of hers who had cheated on his financially successful wife, Munsch told Live Science. "He felt like his partner had all the friends, all the money, all the success, because this person wasn't working, and his wife was," Munsch said.

LightSail Spacecraft Wakes Up Again, Deploys Solar Sail

It wasn't exactly smooth sailing, but The Planetary Society's cubesat got the job done in the end. The tiny LightSail spacecraft overcame a battery problem — the second glitch it suffered after launching to Earth orbit last month — and deployed its solar sail Sunday (June 7), said representatives of The Planetary Society, a California-based nonprofit led by former TV "Science Guy" Bill Nye. "Sail deployment began at 3:47 p.m. EDT (19:47 UTC) off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, as the spacecraft traveled northwest to southeast," The Planetary Society's Jason Davis wrote in a mission update Sunday.

Children learn to write by teaching robots

By Matthew Stock Researchers in Switzerland have designed a system where children teach robot students how to write, and in the process improve their own handwriting skills. This learning by teaching paradigm, they say, could engage unmotivated students as well as boost their self-confidence. The prototype system, called CoWriter, was developed by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne. A humanoid robot, designed to be likeable and interact with humans, is presented with a word that the child spells out in plastic letters. ...

Shady Science: How the Brain Remembers Colors

Many cultures have the same color words or categories, said Jonathan Flombaum, a cognitive psychologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In the first experiment, they asked people to look at a color wheel with 180 different hues, and asked them to find the best name for each color. For a third experiment, the researchers showed participants colored squares, and asked them to select the best match on the color wheel.

Are You the 5 Percent? Small Minority Have No Health Problems

If you're in perfect health, you're in the minority: Less than 5 percent of people worldwide had no health problems in 2013, a new study finds. Researchers analyzed information on about 300 diseases and conditions — everything from acne and PMS to chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes — and more than 2,300 disease-related consequences, in people in 188 countries. Overall, just 4.3 percent of people had no health problems, the researchers found.

Deadly Melanoma May Not Show Up as a Mole

It's a good idea to keep an eye on your moles, to see if any of them are changing, which can be a sign of skin cancer, experts agree. Moreover, melanomas that arise in non-mole areas of the skin tend to be more aggressive and deadly than those that do arise from moles, the study found. "We find that the ones without a [mole] appear to be more aggressive," said Dr. David Polsky, the study's lead researcher and a professor of dermatology, pathology and dermatologic oncology at New York University School of Medicine.

1 Pinprick Test Could Detect Hundreds of Viruses

Called VirScan, the test looks for hundreds of viruses at once, and does so at a fraction of the cost of traditional tests, and with smaller samples of blood, according to the researchers. "We could use a lot less blood [than traditional tests]," said Tomasz Kula, one of the co-authors of the new research and a graduate student at Harvard Medical School. The VirScan test uses these engineered viruses to look for antibodies to each of these viruses in a sample of a person's blood.

FBI's High-Tech Surveillance Planes: 4 Things You Should Know

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation controls a fleet of airplanes equipped with technology that could be used to keep tabs on people from above, according to a new report from The Associated Press. The FBI's surveillance planes are supposedly used only to support the agency's operations on the ground, the AP reports. The FBI has been using small aircraft to support its ground operations (for example, tracking suspects) since at least the 1980s, according to AP's report, which also states that the planes are owned and operated by front companies.

NASA 'Flying Saucer' Launches to Test Mars Landing Tech

A "flying saucer" that NASA hopes will help astronauts land safely on Mars someday has taken to the skies again. The balloon-aided liftoff kicked off the second test flight of the LDSD system, which is designed to get superheavy payloads down softly on the surface of Mars.

First Trailer for 'The Martian' Puts Matt Damon in Peril

The first official trailer for Ridley Scott's "The Martian" was released today (June 8), and it's a doozy, packing gorgeous vistas of the Red Planet, intricately rendered spaceships and some laughs into three dramatic minutes. The trailer lays out the basic story of "The Martian," which is based on the best-selling 2014 novel of the same name by Andy Weir: A powerful storm hits a manned Mars outpost, forcing the crew to evacuate and head back to Earth. NASA astronaut Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) doesn't make it onboard and is presumed dead.

NASA's 'flying saucer' lifts off to test Mars landing system

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A massive helium balloon lifted off from a U.S. Navy base in Hawaii on Monday to carry an experimental saucer-shaped Mars landing system into the atmosphere for a second test run, a NASA TV broadcast showed. Stretching about as tall as a 98-story building, the balloon, parachute, cables and NASA's test vehicle floated away at 7:43 a.m. HST (1743 GMT) from the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii. The balloon was expected to take about three hours to reach an altitude of 120,000 feet (36,576 meters), at which point NASA's saucer-shaped Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) spacecraft will separate for its test flight.

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Sunday, June 7, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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Korean Robot Takes Home $2M Prize in DARPA Challenge

POMONA, Calif. – A robotics team from South Korea took home the $2 million first-place prize in a competition this weekend to design robots that could aid humans in a natural or man-made disaster.

Origin-of-Life Story May Have Found Its Missing Link

It's been one of modern biology's greatest mysteries: How did the chemical soup that existed on the early Earth lead to the complex molecules needed to create living, breathing organisms? For instance, how did the chemistry of simple carbon-based molecules lead to the information storage of ribonucleic acid, or RNA? The RNA molecule must store information to code for proteins.

Cross-county bike trip aims to inspire young scientists

BOSTON (AP) — Seven students from Harvard and MIT are cycling across America, stopping in many rural towns to get kids interested in science through hands-on workshops to program computers, launch model rockets and build robots.

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Saturday, June 6, 2015

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Trouble looms as warmer oceans push marine life toward the poles

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rising sea temperatures attributed to global climate change could drive many marine creatures away from the equator, but their move toward the poles promises to put them in peril in habitats that are smaller and less hospitable, scientists say. Two studies published on Thursday in the journal Science illustrate dangers researchers forecast for sea animals as diverse as corals, fish and crustaceans. University of Washington oceanographer Curtis Deutsch said warmer ocean temperatures increase both the metabolic rates of ocean creatures and their demand for oxygen, but warm water contains less oxygen than cold, necessitating a move toward the poles to find cooler seas.

Philadelphia physicist pleads not guilty in China technology transfer

The chairman of Temple University's physics department pleaded not guilty in Philadelphia federal court to four counts of wire fraud for allegedly sharing proprietary U.S. technology with China, his lawyer said on Friday. Xiaoxing Xi, a 47-year-old American citizen born in China, was arrested and charged in May. Free on bail, he entered his not guilty plea on Thursday and faces up to 80 years in prison if convicted. Federal prosecutors said Xi, an expert in the field of superconductivity, had a decade-long relationship with Chinese government entities and third parties and frequently collaborated with them on research.

New Jersey governor sues to stop to ocean sonic boom research

(Reuters) - Governor Chris Christie's administration went to federal court on Friday in the hopes of stopping an underwater study off New Jersey's coast during summer tourism season, saying sonic boom research would endanger marine mammals and other species. In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Trenton, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection seeks to halt the study being performed by Rutgers University and funded by the National Science Foundation. "The project will shoot powerful sonic blasts every five seconds for thirty days into prime fishing areas and waters used by marine mammals and threatened and endangered species," the lawsuit said.

Amazon, Google race to get your DNA into the cloud

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc is in a race against Google Inc to store data on human DNA, seeking both bragging rights in helping scientists make new medical discoveries and market share in a business that may be worth $1 billion a year by 2018. Academic institutions and healthcare companies are picking sides between their cloud computing offerings - Google Genomics or Amazon Web Services - spurring the two to one-up each other as they win high-profile genomics business, according to interviews with researchers, industry consultants and analysts. That growth is being propelled by, among other forces, the push for personalized medicine, which aims to base treatments on a patient's DNA profile. The human genome is the full complement of DNA, or genetic material, a copy of which is found in nearly every cell of the body. Clients view Google and Amazon as doing a better job storing genomics data than they can do using their own computers, keeping it secure, controlling costs and allowing it to be easily shared. The cloud companies are going beyond storage to offer analytical functions that let scientists make sense of DNA data.

Venus, Jupiter and Saturn (Oh, My!) The Brightest Planets of June

As June kicks off, Saturn can be found low in the southeast at dusk, with the nearly full moon shines a few degrees away. Other planetary treats include Jupiter and Saturn shining bright in the night sky. June 6: Venus dominates the west after sunset for another month.

Going Ape: NASA's RoboSimian Competes in DARPA Robotics Challenge

RoboSimian – an apelike NASA robot that can map its environment in 3D – is facing off against a field of other robots this week to see which automaton has the right stuff for the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals. The gangly-armed RoboSimian, nicknamed "Clyde," was built by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, to cross tough terrain and use hand-like manipulators. It is one of 25 teams that qualified for the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals for disaster-response robots underway today and Saturday (June 5-6) at the Fairplex in Pomona, California.

Venus Shining at Its Best in the Night Sky

If you've been watching the sky in the early evening lately, you can't have missed seeing the planet Venus in the west and now this planet is putting on brilliant show in the night sky. Tonight (June 6), the planet reaches its greatest angular distance from the sun, 45 degrees, at what is called "greatest elongation east." Even though we are looking at it in the western sky, it is elongated in the direction of the eastern horizon, so it is east of the sun in astronomical terminology. As seen in a small telescope, Venus this week appears like a brilliant miniature first quarter moon.

Inside T. Rex: Fake Autopsy Reveals Dino's Innards

In an opener worthy of "Jurassic Park," a top-secret vehicle carries a Tyrannosaurus rex to a nondescript building sheltered behind a barbed wire fence, where four people anxiously await T. rex's arrival. The four medical and dinosaur experts, cloaked in scrubs and wielding knives and chainsaws, can't wait to autopsy the beast to learn what killed it. Although the dinosaur in "T. rex Autopsy" is fake (made of Fiberglass, latex and silicone rubber, and holding 34 gallons of stage blood), the experts autopsying it are real.

Meet the Guy Who Fake-Dissected a T. Rex

Dream or not, the National Geographic Channel is set to make dinosaur dissection a reality — or at least as close to reality as possible. With the help of a special-effects shop and gallons of dyed corn-syrup "blood," three paleontologists and a veterinary surgeon got the chance to go inside a life-size, anatomically realistic Tyrannosaurus rex for a new TV special airing Sunday, June 7 at 9 p.m. EDT/8 p.m. CDT). Live Science talked to Matthew Mossbrucker, one of the stars of the special, called "T. rex Autopsy." Mossbrucker, director and curator of the Morrison Natural History Museum in Colorado, explained via email the allure of slicing up a fake T. rex for television.

Say Cheese: Rare Striped Rabbit Photographed

A rare striped rabbit, seen only a handful of times, has peeked out of its tropical forest home, and a graduate student got the chance of a lifetime, holding and photographing the little guy on the first day of a three-month expedition to study the animal's habitat. The Annamite striped rabbit (Nesolagus timminsi) has been spotted only in the pristine tropical forests of the northern and central Annamite Mountain range between the borders of Vietnam and Laos. Rabbit expert Diana Bell and colleagues from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom, first described the species in 1999 in the journal Nature.

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