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Sunday, August 23, 2015

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See Saturn and the Moon Pair Off Tonight

If the weather is clear in your area on tonight (Aug. 22), you'll have an opportunity to see what probably are for most people, the two most popular objects to look at through a telescope: Saturn and the moon.

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Saturday, August 22, 2015

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The Great American Total Solar Eclipse Is Coming 2 Years from Today

This total solar eclipse of 2017 will be the first time in nearly four decades that such an event will be visible so close to home. Contrary to popular belief, totalsolar eclipses are not particularly rare. In recent years, for instance, assiduous eclipse chasers had to travel to remote locations such as Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada (2008), Easter Island (2010) or the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard (2015).

Jimmy Carter Gets New Melanoma Treatment: Here's How It Works

To treat Jimmy Carter's cancer, doctors will use one of the newest advances in cancer therapy — a class of drugs that mobilizes a patient's own immune system against their cancer. On Thursday (Aug. 20), the former president announced that he has advanced melanoma, a type of skin cancer, and that it has spread to his liver and brain. Doctors have already removed a small tumor from his liver, and he will start a course of radiation therapy to treat the tumors in his brain, Carter said at a news conference.

German scientists find rare dinosaur tracks

By Josie Le Blond BERLIN (Reuters) - German scientists have found an unusually long trail of footprints from a 30-tonne dinosaur in an abandoned quarry in Lower Saxony, a discovery they think could be around 145 million years old. "It's very unusual how long the trail is and what great condition it's in," excavation leader Benjamin Englich told Reuters at the site, referring to 90 uninterrupted footprints stretching over 50 meters. Englich said the elephant-like tracks were stomped into the ground sometime between 135 and 145 million years ago by a sauropod - a class of heavy dinosaurs with long necks and tails.

Booze Sent to Space to Explore 'Mellow' Mechanism

Tokyo-based Suntory Global Innovation Center, which has a division called Suntory Whiskey, launched a set of alcoholic beverages toward the International Space Station on Wednesday (Aug. 19) aboard Japan's fifth H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-5). The booze includes five different types of distilled spirits, Suntory representatives said.

Digital Calendar Shows Best Images from NASA Space Telescope

A NASA telescope celebrates 12 years in space over the weekend, and the agency has released a free digital calendar packed with gorgeous images to mark the occasion. The new calendar features a dozen of the best pictures captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which blasted off on Aug. 23, 2003, and continues to observe the heavens today. "You can't fully represent Spitzer's scientific bounty in only 12 images," Spitzer project scientist Michael Werner, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement.

Human Ancestors May Have Butchered Animals 3.4 Million Years Ago

Cut marks on two 3.4-million-year-old animal bones from Ethiopia were thought to be evidence that the beasts had been trampled by other animals long ago, but new research suggests that's not the case. The new results debunk one theory for how the bones got their marks, and support — but do not, on their own, definitively prove — the alternative hypothesis that ancient human ancestors cut the bones. Combined with recent evidence that human predecessors used stone tools about 3.3 million years ago, the new study could help change the picture of human ancestors of the genus Australopithecus, whose members include the famous "Lucy" skeleton.

California Sinking Faster Than Thought, Aquifers Could Permanently Shrink

California is sinking even faster than scientists had thought, new NASA satellite imagery shows. "Because of increased pumping, groundwater levels are reaching record lows — up to 100 feet (30 meters) lower than previous records," Mark Cowin, director of California's Department of Water Resources, said in a statement.

Gruesome Meal: Seagulls Snack on Baby Seals' Eyeballs

Hungry seagulls on the coast of Namibia have a gruesome way of snacking: they peck out and consume the eyeballs of baby seals, according to a new study. In 1998, Rowntree and several of her colleagues published their observations of the gulls' morbid feeding behavior in the journal Marine Mammal Science.

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Friday, August 21, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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July was hottest month recorded worldwide: U.S. scientists

July was the warmest month ever on record worldwide and 2015 has been so far the hottest year, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Thursday, just over three months to go before world leaders seek to reach a climate agreement in Paris. In its monthly global climate report released online on Thursday, NOAA said many countries and the world's oceans experienced heatwaves, with the Earth's oceans temperature also hitting record highs last month. This July was the all-time highest monthly temperature in the records that date back to 1880, at 61.86 degrees Fahrenheit (16.61 degree Celsius), according to NOAA.

Ghostly Particles from Outer Space Detected in Antarctica

Buried deep in the Antarctic ice, an observatory has spotted ghostly, nearly massless particles coming from inside our galaxy and points beyond the Milky Way. Finding these cosmic neutrinos not only confirms their existence but also sheds light on the origins of cosmic rays, the researchers said.

Bad Habits Put Many Contact-Lens Wearers at Risk of Eye Infection

Most Americans who wear contacts have bad hygiene habits with their lenses that could increase their risk of eye infection, according to a new report. About 99 percent reported engaging in habits known to increase their risk of eye infections. For example, 85 percent said they showered with their contact lenses, 61 percent reported swimming with their lenses and 35 percent reported rinsing their lenses with water, according to the report, released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

European Rocket Launches 2 Communications Satellites Into Orbit

A European rocket launched into space from a South American spaceport Thursday (Aug. 20) on a mission to deliver two new communications satellites into orbit for a pair of telecommunications giants.

Massive Aztec human skull rack found in Mexico City

Archeologists have discovered a massive ceremonial skull rack from the heyday of the Aztec empire in the heart of Mexico City, a find that could shed new light on how its rulers projected power by human sacrifice, the team said on Thursday. The skull rack, known as a tzompantli in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs, was used to display the bleached white craniums of sacrificed warriors from rival kingdoms, likely killed by priests atop towering temples that once stood nearby. Dug up behind the capital's colonial-era cathedral, the as yet partially uncovered skull rack was likely built between 1485 and 1502 and may have been about 112 feet (34 meters) long and 12 meters (40 foot) wide, lead archeologist Raul Barrera said.

Wormhole Created in Lab Makes Invisible Magnetic Field

Ripped from the pages of a sci-fi novel, physicists have crafted a wormhole that tunnels a magnetic field through space. "This device can transmit the magnetic field from one point in space to another point, through a path that is magnetically invisible," said study co-author Jordi Prat-Camps, a doctoral candidate in physics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain. The idea of a wormhole comes from Albert Einstein's theories.

'The Martian' Lands at NASA's Mars Mission Control (Photos)

This week, the people behind the upcoming sci-fi blockbuster "The Martian" got a little taste of how real Red Planet exploration works. "The Martian" star Matt Damon, director Ridley Scott and Andy Weir, who wrote the book on which the movie is based, visited NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, on Tuesday (Aug. 18) — the same day a new trailer for "The Martian" was released. The special "Martian Day" featured a talk by Jim Green, head of NASA's Planetary Science division, and a Q&A discussion involving Green, Damon, Scott, Weir and astronaut Drew Feustel.

Lake Mead's Water Sinks to Lowest Level Since 1930s

Years of unrelenting drought are straining a large reservoir of water between Nevada and Arizona, new satellite images reveal. Images taken July 25 show that Lake Mead's water level has dropped by about 120 feet (37 meters) from where the water reached 15 years ago, on July 6, 2000. The Landsat 8 satellite, jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, captured both photos of the sprawling reservoir.

Can You Trust Wikipedia on Science?

That kind of flux isn't unusual: Wikipedia pages on hot-button issues such as global warming and evolution may change much more frequently than pages on less controversial subjects, according to a new study. The findings raise the question: Which science pages on Wikipedia can be trusted? Wikipedia relies on the wisdom of the crowds, allowing anyone to create or edit any Wiki page while others go in and tweak, update or delete revisions.

Science will prevail in doping firestorm - WADA chief

By Nick Mulvenney BEIJING (Reuters) - Science will ultimately put out the doping firestorm that has engulfed athletics in the run-up to the world championships, Craig Reedie, head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), said on Friday. The governing body of athletics, the IAAF, has been in crisis since data from thousands of blood samples was leaked to two media organisations this month. Three weeks of further leaks and allegations that the IAAF has been soft on dopers have overshadowed the run-up to its biennial showpiece, which opens in Beijing with the men's marathon on Saturday.

Are Vitamin E Supplements Healthy or Harmful?

Dr. John Swartzberg is an internist and specialist in infectious disease and chairman of the editorial board of the UC Berkeley Wellness Letter and berkeleywellness.com. It's been nearly a century since researchers at the University of California, Berkeley discovered vitamin E, and since then, many studies have looked at the potential health benefits of this antioxidant. Over the years, supplement makers and some researchers predicted that vitamin E would help prevent cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease, as well as help maintain eyesight and keep skin glowing.

Why Magnetars Should Freak You Out

Paul Sutter is a research fellow at the Astronomical Observatory of Trieste and a visiting scholar at The Ohio State University's Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics. They're easy enough to make — if you're a massive star.

Parents, Choose the Shot: Every Newborn Needs Lifesaving Vitamin K

What do vitamin K and immunizations have in common? There has been much discussion about immunizations in the past few years, and here is one dangerous unintended consequence: When parents refuse vaccines after a child's birth, they unwittingly also refuse vitamin K. For more than half a century, giving newborn infants an injection of vitamin K within the first few hours of life has been the standard of care.

Science will prevail in doping firestorm - WADA chief

Why California's Droughts are Just Going to Get Worse (Op-Ed)

California is now well into its fourth consecutive year of drought. Tensions in the state have mounted as urban and agricultural water users become increasingly stressed by water shortages — but we can't blame the almond farmers. There are many factors at play here, notably a complex water cycle and conveyance network, as well as a somewhat archaic legal landscape.

3 Critical Fixes for the US Health Care System (Op-Ed)

Anmol Madan is co-founder and CEO of Ginger.io, which provides digital mental health support for people with depression and anxiety. Madan has published extensively on modeling large-scale human behaviour using statistical models and pattern recognition, and is a frequent speaker on behavioral analytics, machine learning, data privacy and health care entrepreneurship.

Women's Libido Pill Faces Skepticism After Approval

Some health professionals are reacting with more enthusiasm than others about the first approved drug aimed at increasing women's sexual desire. Many have compared Addyi to Viagra, the medication for men with erectile dysfunction that increases blood flow to the penis. The problem with focusing solely on neurotransmitters' role in sex drive is that a woman's desire to have sex isn't linked only to chemicals in the brain, said Kristen Carpenter, a psychologist and director of Women's Behavioral Health at The Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center.

Breast-Fed Babies Show Buildup of Potentially Harmful Chemical

Scientists have found that a widespread and potentially harmful class of industrial chemicals accumulates easily in human breast milk and can build up to worrying levels in infants who are breast-fed. For human infants, protein-rich breast milk appears to be the major source of PFAS exposure. In the new study, scientists at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston and Danish institutions found that in children exclusively breast-fed, PFAS concentrations in their blood increased by about 20 to 30 percent each month.

Plague Cases in California: What's Behind the Rise?

After nearly 10 years without any cases of plague, California has seen two people contract the age-old illness already this summer. Experts say it's hard to know why there are more cases of plague in California this year than in recent years. A number of factors — including the behavior of people or rodents, or even the California drought — could play a role in the cases of this bacterial infection.

German scientists find rare dinosaur tracks

By Josie Le Blond BERLIN (Reuters) - German scientists have found an unusually long trail of footprints from a 30-tonne dinosaur in an abandoned quarry in Lower Saxony, a discovery they think could be around 145 million years old. "It's very unusual how long the trail is and what great condition it's in," excavation leader Benjamin Englich told Reuters at the site, referring to 90 uninterrupted footprints stretching over 50 metres. Englich said the elephant-like tracks were stomped into the ground sometime between 135 and 145 million years ago by a sauropod - a class of heavy dinosaurs with long necks and tails.

Spot Has Your Back: Dogs Avoid People Who Slight Owners

"So far, it is not clear what dogs understand about human interactions," said Marie Nitzschner, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, who was not involved in the study. As many dog owners know, the animals eagerly watch people all the time, said the study's senior author, Kazuo Fujita, a professor of psychology and comparative cognition at Kyoto University in Japan.

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