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Friday, July 3, 2015

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Mass Shootings Are Contagious

Mass shootings spawn subsequent mass shootings, new research finds. The researchers discovered statistical "clusters" of shootings in which four or more people die, the standard definition of a mass shooting. School shootings also cluster, said study researcher Sherry Towers, a professor of mathematical and computational modeling at Arizona State University.

Lawsuit filed against U.S. over protections for rare wolf

(Reuters) - A coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit on Thursday against U.S. wildlife officials arguing that the government's management plan for the endangered Mexican gray wolf, one of the most imperiled mammals in North America, does not go far enough. The Western Environmental Law Center filed the suit on behalf of several organizations in a federal Arizona court, alleging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's plans for the wolves violate the Endangered Species Act and other laws. "Unfortunately, politics supplants wildlife biology in key parts of the USFWS Mexican gray wolf plan," attorney John Mellgren of the Western Environmental Law Center said in a statement.

Black Hole 'Wakes Up' After 26-Year Slumber

After taking a 26-year nap, a waking black hole released a burst of X-rays that lit up astronomical observatories on June 15 — and it's still making a ruckus today. Astronomers identified the revived black hole as an "X-ray nova" — a sudden increase in star luminosity — coming from a binary system in the constellation Cygnus. The burst was first caught by NASA's Swift satellite, and then by a Japanese experiment on the International Space Station, called Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI).

Genome study reveals how the woolly mammoth thrived in the cold

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Woolly mammoths spent their lives enduring extreme Arctic conditions including frigid temperatures, an arid environment and the relentless cycle of dark winters and bright summers. An exhaustive genetic analysis of these bygone Ice Age giants and their living cousins, Asian and African elephants, has revealed a slew of genetic adaptations that enabled woolly mammoths to thrive for eons in such adverse circumstances. The study, published on Thursday in the journal Cell Reports, compared the genomes of two mammoths whose remains were found in permafrost in northeastern Siberia, one 18,500 years old and the other 60,000 years old, with genomes of three Asian elephants and one African elephant.

Air Force says rocket accident won't bump SpaceX from competition

By Irene Klotz and Andrea Shalal CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - SpaceX can compete to launch a U.S. Global Positioning System satellite despite a Falcon 9 rocket accident this weekend, the Air Force said on Wednesday. "SpaceX remains certified and can compete for the upcoming GPS III launch service," Lt. General Samuel Greaves, who heads the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, wrote in an email to Reuters. The Air Force plans to release a solicitation for launch service proposals this month, the first time SpaceX, which is owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, will be eligible to compete against United Launch Alliance (ULA).

Solar-powered plane breaks solo flight record across Pacific to Hawaii

By Suzanne Roig HONOLULU (Reuters) - A Swiss man attempting to circumnavigate the globe with an aircraft powered only by the sun's energy has broken a world record for the longest non-stop solo flight, the pilots said on Thursday. The Solar Impulse, which took off from Japan on Monday on the seventh leg of its journey and is expected to land in Hawaii by the weekend, shattered the solo-flight record threshold of 76 hours while crossing the Pacific.. The aircraft, piloted by Swiss explorers Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, set off on its 22,000-mile (35,000-km) journey around the world from Abu Dhabi on March 9. "Can you imagine that a solar powered airplane without fuel can now fly longer than a jet plane!" said Piccard.

Russian Cargo Spacecraft Launches Toward Space Station

It looks like a robotic cargo ship will actually make it to the International Space Station this time.

Solar-powered plane breaks solo flight record across Pacific to Hawaii

By Suzanne Roig HONOLULU (Reuters) - A Swiss man attempting to circumnavigate the globe with an aircraft powered only by the sun's energy has broken a world record for the longest non-stop solo flight, the project team said on Thursday. The Solar Impulse, which took off from Japan on Monday on the seventh leg of its journey and is expected to land in Hawaii early on Friday, shattered the solo-flight record threshold of 76 hours while crossing the Pacific.. The aircraft, piloted alternatively by Swiss explorers Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard, set off on its 22,000-mile (35,000-km) journey around the world from Abu Dhabi on March 9. "Can you imagine that a solar powered airplane without fuel can now fly longer than a jet plane!" said Piccard in a statement.

Russian cargo ship heads to space station, breaking string of failures

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off on Friday to deliver a cargo ship loaded with food, water and equipment to the International Space Station, breaking a string of launch failures, a NASA TV broadcast showed. The Progress capsule, carrying more than three tons (2,700 kg) of supplies, was expected to reach the orbiting outpost on Sunday following launch at 12:55 a.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. "All of the systems on the Progress (are) in excellent shape," said NASA launch commentator Rob Navias.

7 Shark Attacks in 3 Weeks: Are North Carolina Beaches Safe?

Fourth of July weekend is a popular time to hit the beach, but this year, vacationers may not be the only ones swarming the waters off North Carolina. In the past three weeks, there have been seven shark attacks along the state's coast, which may leave some beachgoers wondering if it's time to get out of the water. "A shark attack is an equation of shark plus human equals attack, and we can't really deal with the shark part that well, so we have to deal with the human part," said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History.

Seabirds Smell Their Way Home

By assessing bird flight patterns, a team of scientists has found evidence supporting the idea that seabirds navigate using smell. This is the "first direct evidence that seabirds use odor maps to navigate over vast expanses of visually featureless oceans to locate preferred grounds, and then to return home and pinpoint their breeding colony," said Andrew Reynolds, lead author of the new study detailing the findings. Reynolds is a research scientist in the Department of Computational and Systems Biology at Rothamsted Research, an agricultural research center in the United Kingdom.

Scientists convinced European heat waves boosted by climate change

By Laurie Goering LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As Germany and Spain sweated and London sweltered through its hottest July day on record this week, scientists said it is "virtually certain" that climate change is increasing the likelihood of such heat waves in Europe. In real-time data analysis released on Friday, a team of international climate scientists from universities, meteorological services and research organizations said the kind of heat waves hitting Europe this week – defined as three-day periods of excessive heat – are becoming much more frequent in the region. In De Bilt in the Netherlands, for example, a heat wave like the one forecast for the next few days would have been a roughly 1-in-30-years event in the 1900s, according to the scientists.

Is Technology Destroying Empathy? (Op-Ed)

Empathy — the ability to share someone else's feelings — is perhaps the most important trait humans demonstrate. I wrote the science fiction novel "(R)EVOLUTION" (47North, June 2015) in part to examine what it would be like for a person whose brain has been technologically enhanced for empathy to the point that even the emotions and physical sensations his most deadly enemies would be felt. While that was fun (and dramatic!) to imagine, it's only a small part of the empathy story.

Kepler Planet-Hunting Visionary Retires After 53 Years at NASA

The driving force behind NASA's prolific planet-hunting Kepler mission is retiring, ending a 53-year career with the space agency. Bill Borucki came up with the idea for the Kepler observatory in the early 1980s and continued championing the concept through four failed proposals until the mission was finally approved in 2000. "Bill's unique leadership, vision and research tenacity has and will continue to inspire scientists around the world," former astronaut John Grunsfeld, head of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement.

NASA Astronaut Hopes to See Fourth of July Fireworks from Space

Orbiting NASA astronaut Scott Kelly doesn't have any special plans for the Fourth of July, though he will try to catch a glimpse of the fireworks displays down on Earth. "Hopefully the timing will be right, and I'll be able to look down and see little specks of light over the United States on the evening of the Fourth of July," Kelly said Thursday (July 2) during a video interview with NASA spokesman Dan Huot of Johnson Space Center in Houston. Kelly currently lives aboard the $100 billion orbiting outpost along with Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka.

Awake Again: Is It Insomnia or Just Segmented Sleep? (Op-Ed)

Sleep is perhaps the most mysterious of all human activities. Soldiers, shift workers, medical residents, flight attendants, pilots and most parents of small children suffer from insufficient sleep. You need just as much sleep, but it's harder to get it in one stretch.

7 Famous Fourths: How Independence Day Has Transformed

Americans celebrated the first July Fourth in 1777, a year after declaring independence from England. The festivities have varied in the years since then, but several mainstays have emerged (parades and fireworks) while other patriotic pastimes (drunken toasts made by menfolk) have gone out of style. Philadelphia held one of the largest Independence Day festivities for the country's first Fourth.

Climate Change Sparks Turbulence in Aviation Industry (Op-Ed)

Dan Upham, writer and editor at Environmental Defense Fund contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. This summer, some 222 million Americans will take to the skies, according to industry trade group Airlines for America — a record high, to say nothing of how many packets of peanuts that represents. In June, a proposed "endangerment finding" by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) noted that carbon pollution from airplanes creates risks to the public's health and welfare.

Beam Me Up, Scotty: Technobabble's Role in the Arts (Op-Ed)

Peter Clines has published short fiction and articles on the film and television industries and is author of the new novel "The Fold"(Crown Publishing, 2015). I'm not sure, but I think it was watching "The Amazing Colossal Man" on Creature Double Feature as a kid that gave me my first, foul-tasting dose of technobabble. The doctors were trying to tell Glenn Manning's wife why his uncontrolled growth was causing him so much pain.

Solar-powered plane lands in Hawaii, pilot sets nonstop record

(Reuters) - A Swiss man attempting to circumnavigate the globe with an aircraft powered only by the sun's energy landed in Hawaii on Friday, after a record-breaking five-day nonstop solo flight across the Pacific Ocean from Japan. The Solar Impulse 2 is the first aircraft to fly day and night without any fuel. Pilot Andre Borschberg's 120-hour voyage shattered the 76-hour record for nonstop flight by late American adventurer Steve Fossett in 2006 on the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer.

First US Measles Death in 12 Years: How Was It Missed?

A woman in Washington state is the first person to die of measles in the United States in a dozen years, authorities said today. The woman appears to have caught measles when she stayed at local medical facility. It's not clear exactly why doctors failed to catch her measles diagnosis until after her death, but the woman's compromised immune system may have played a role, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease specialist and a senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Center for Health Security.

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Thursday, July 2, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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Ex-Iowa State scientist gets prison for faking AIDS research

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A former Iowa State University scientist who has admitted to faking AIDS research has been sentenced to 4 ½ years in prison and must repay a federal government agency more than $7 million.

Total recall: brain process for memory formation revealed

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With a little help from Clint Eastwood, Jennifer Aniston and Josh Brolin - or at least photos of them - scientists have gained a new understanding of how memories of everyday events are formed in the brain. Researchers said on Wednesday a study involving people with electrodes implanted in their brains has shown that individual neurons in a region called the medial temporal lobe play a central role in swiftly forming these memories. The devices also enabled the researchers to pinpoint individual neurons that encoded memories.

Wild 'Jesus Lizard' Once Walked on Wyoming's Tropical Waters

About 48 million years ago, a distant relative of the "Jesus lizard," named for its knack for walking on water, darted around the tropical rainforests of ancient Wyoming, a new study finds. From the fossil they did find — a skull with a toothy smile — in 2008, they posit the animal was likely the same size as a modern Jesus lizard — about 2 feet (0.6 meters) long from head to tail. Wyoming is no longer home to wild Jesus lizards.

Study: Polar bears could feel global warming's sting by 2025

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — About a third of the world's polar bears could be in imminent danger from greenhouse gas emissions in as soon as a decade, a U.S. government report shows.

Fourth of July Downer: Fireworks Cause Spike in Air Pollution

Fireworks are a beloved tradition of the Fourth of July, but the colorful displays also bring a spike in air pollution, a new study shows. The researchers analyzed information from more than 300 air-quality monitoring sites throughout the United States, from 1999 to 2013. The researchers looked at levels of so-called fine particulate matter — tiny particles that can get deep into the lungs, and are linked with a number of health problems.

How Not to Get Stung by a Portuguese Man-of-War

Like cast members on a distasteful reality show, Portuguese man-of-war "jellyfish" are descending upon the Jersey Shore in increasing numbers. Last week, one of these venomous creatures (which are related to jellyfish) washed up in Harvey Cedars, a town on Long Beach Island, New Jersey. Man-of-war fish have stinging cells that are still active and capable of stinging even after the creature is dead, according to Paul Bologna, associate professor of biology at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

Southern Lights Shimmer in Antarctica's Night Sky (Photo)

A dark, moonless sky is awash in light radiating from an aurora over Antarctica in a new image released by NASA. The satellite photo captures the aurora australis, or "southern lights," in the early morning hours of June 24. Solar flares, or intense radiation bursts from the sun, release a torrent of particles and electromagnetic energy toward Earth, flooding the atmosphere with lights that radiate around the North and South Poles.

Ancient Ritual Bath Found Under Unsuspecting Family's Floorboards

The ancient ritual bath, called a "miqwe" or "mikveh," was discovered in the town of Ein Karem, a neighborhood in southwest Jerusalem that claims to be the birthplace of John the Baptist. "Such instances of finding antiquities beneath a private home can happen only in Israel and Jerusalem in particular," Amit Re'em, a Jerusalem District archaeologist, said in a statement. Ein Karem, a mountainous region, is a sacred place for Christians not only because John the Baptist may have called it home, but also because it is where the Bible says his pregnant mother Elisabeth met with the Blessed Virgin Mary.

New Horizons Spots Methane Ice on Pluto

Methane was first discovered on Pluto in 1976, so the find by New Horizons is not surprising. With the announcement of the methane detection, the mission team also released a series of new images of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, which are steadily coming into focus as the probe nears its target. The source of methane on Pluto is currently unknown: it could be primordial, having come from the chemical soup that eventually formed the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.

Pluto Probe's Hazard Search Turns Up No New Moons

The New Horizons probe has spotted no signs of rings or additional moons in the Pluto system, so the spacecraft will remain on its original trajectory when it zooms past the dwarf planet on July 14, NASA officials announced Wednesday (July 2). "Not finding new moons or rings present is a bit of a scientific surprise to most of us," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said in a statement. "We presented these data to NASA for review and received approval to proceed on course and plan.

Nyah! Nyah! How Goldfish Eluded Huge Predator for Years

The goldfish was tossed into the tank of an arapaima, a massive, predatory fish native to South America. Though it sounds far-fetched, the goldfish's survival in such a strange environment is not all that surprising, said Sudeep Chandra, an aquatic ecosystems researcher at the University of Nevada, Reno. The goldfish was originally intended to be fed to the arapaima, which are among the biggest freshwater fish in the world, with some reaching a whopping 484 pounds (220 kilograms).

Woolly Mammoth Clones Closer Than Ever, Thanks to Genome Sequencing

Scientists are one step closer to bringing a woolly mammoth back to life. A new analysis of the woolly mammoth genome has revealed several adaptations that allowed the furry beasts to thrive in the subzero temperatures of the last ice age, including a metabolism that allowed them to pack on insulating fat, smaller ears that lost less heat and a reduced sensitivity to cold. The findings could enable researchers to "resurrect" the ice-age icon — or at least a hybridized Asian elephant with a few of the physical traits of its woolly-haired cousin, said study co-author Vincent Lynch, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago.

Houston, We Have a Spaceport: FAA Gives 'Space City' License for Launches

HOUSTON — The Houston airport where astronauts have departed on training flights for more than 50 years is now host to the United States' newest commercial spaceport. The Houston Airport System (HAS) on Tuesday (June 30) was granted a launch site license from the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) establishing Ellington Airport near the NASA Johnson Space Center as the tenth commercial spaceport in the country. "Houston has a rich history in space operations.

10,000 Monitored for Ebola in US Over Fall & Winter

More than 10,000 people in the United States were monitored for symptoms of Ebola this past fall and winter, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In late October, the CDC recommended that everyone in the United States who had possibly been exposed to Ebola — including people returning from an Ebola-affected country, as well as those who cared for Ebola patients here — be monitored for 21 days after their last exposure for symptoms of the disease. The people being monitored took their own temperatures twice a day, and reported their health status to a public health official at least once daily.

Drug Helps Obese People Drop Weight and Keep It Off

The diabetes drug liraglutide can help obese people who don't have diabetes lose weight and keep it off, new findings confirm. Researchers found that 63 percent of study participants given liraglutide for 56 weeks lost at least 5 percent of their body weight — the amount experts agree is needed to make a difference in obesity-related health problems — whereas just 27 percent of the placebo group lost that much. It seems to be as good as any of the others on the market, so it adds another possibility for doctors to treat patients who are having trouble either losing weight or maintaining weight loss once they get the weight off," said Dr. Xavier Pi-Sunyer, a professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, and first author of the new study published today (July 1) in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Statins Linked to Aggression in Older Women

Postmenopausal women who take statins to manage their cholesterol levels may be more likely to experience an increase in aggression over time than those who don't take statins, a new study suggests. In the study, researchers looked data from a previous study in which about 1,000 people were randomly assigned to take either statins or a placebo for six months. But in men who took statins, aggressive behavior decreased over time, on average, compared with those who took a placebo.

Plague Evolution: How a Mild Stomach Bug Became a Worldwide Killer

The Black Death — the dreaded plague that killed millions of people during the Middle Ages — only reached pandemic status after the bacteria that cause it acquired two pivotal mutations, a new study finds. With the first of those mutations, ancient strains of plague bacteria (Yersinia pestis) gained the ability to cause pneumonic plague — a respiratory form of the disease that spreads easily when people infected with it sneeze around others, researchers found. Only later did the plague genome acquire the second mutation, which gave it the ability to cause the fast-killing disease known today as bubonic plague, the researchers said in their study, published online today (June 30) in the journal Nature Communications.

Flu Vaccine and Narcolepsy: New Findings May Explain Link

An unusual increase in narcolepsy cases in Europe was linked to a new flu vaccine used there, and now researchers may have figured out why: A protein in the vaccine appears to mimic one in the brain that plays a role in the sleep disorder. People with narcolepsy experience severe daytime sleepiness and "sleep attacks," in which they suddenly fall asleep for a short time. The vaccine that was linked to the disorder was used in 2009 and 2010 to protect against the H1N1 strain of flu, which is sometimes called the swine flu.

Seahorse's Amazing Tail Could Inspire Better Robots

Slinky snake robots could get a better grip when climbing, thanks to new research on how a seahorse's tail works, according to a new study. "Human engineers tend to build things that are stiff so they can be controlled easily," study co-author Ross Hatton, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University, said in a statement. In particular, seahorses have square (rather than round) bony plates that surround the "backbone" of their tails.

Report: Polar bears' fate tied to reversing global warming

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — If humans don't reverse global warming and stop the loss of sea ice, it's unlikely polar bears will continue as a species.

Domo Arigato, Mr. Pluto: Rock Band Styx Visits New Horizons Team

As NASA's New Horizons spacecraft sails away to Pluto, one bunch of musicians is particularly intrigued by its journey: Styx, the rock band that shares a name with Pluto's smallest moon. Members of the iconic rock group recently met with the space probe's NASA team at the mission's headquarters at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland. All of Pluto's moons rock, of course, but perhaps the most hardcore is Styx, which was spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2012.

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