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Wednesday, September 23, 2015

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Saving Prostate Cancer Patients from Collateral Damage

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. We are living during a remarkable age in the battle against cancer. Just a few decades ago, cancer was considered a terminal illness.

Drones Save Lives in Disasters, When They're Allowed to Fly (Op-Ed)

Robin Murphy directs the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue at Texas A&M University. Hurricane Katrina saw the first deployment of drones in a disaster, setting the stage for such drone deployments worldwide — from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident to the Nepal earthquake. The last decade has seen an evolution in small unmanned aerial vehicles (or UAVs, the preferred name agencies use for civilian, as opposed to military, drones).

Hail Hydra! A Monstrous Constellation Explained

Huw James is a science communicator, fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and guest lecturer at the University of South Wales. Follow James on Twitter @huwmjames and keep an eye on his website for more info on his upcoming "Constellation Series" book. Llyn y Fan Fawr is Welsh for "lake of the big peak," at the foothill of Fan Brycheiniog in Wales.

Filmmakers Show the Scale of the Solar System in Amazing Video

If Earth were as small as a marble, the solar system out to Neptune would cover an area the size of San Francisco — and that's just in two dimensions. That point is driven home by a new video called "To Scale: The Solar System," which shows filmmakers Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh, along with a few of their friends, building a size-accurate model of our cosmic backyard in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. "If you put the orbits to scale on a piece of paper, the planets become microscopic, and you won't be able to see them," Overstreet says in the 7-minute video, which has been viewed more than 1.4 million times since it was posted on YouTube Sept. 16.

Bizarre Giant Hexagon on Saturn May Finally Be Explained

The huge, mysterious hexagon at Saturn's north pole may finally have an explanation. The bizarre hexagonal cloud pattern was first discovered in 1988 by scientists reviewing data from NASA's Voyager flybys of Saturn in 1980 and 1981, but its existence was not confirmed until NASA's Cassini spacecraft observed the ringed planet up-close years later. The structure, which contains a churning storm at its center, is about 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) wide, and thermal images show that it reaches roughly 60 miles (100 km) down into Saturn's atmosphere.

US Dumps Twice as Much Trash as EPA Estimated

The United States is sending more than twice as much solid waste into its landfills as previously thought, a new study finds. Researchers found that people threw away 289 million tons of municipal solid waste in 2012, a figure that is more than double the 135 million tons that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calculated for that same year. The new estimate also exceeds by 4 percent the World Bank's predictions for the amount of waste the United States will generate in 2025, the researchers said.

Some Fruits & Vegetables Are Better For Your Waistline

Eating more fruits — particularly berries, apples and pears — and nonstarchy vegetables, like soybeans and cauliflower, may help you lose weight over the long term, a new study suggests. However, adding starchy vegetables like peas, potatoes and corn to your diet may not be as good for your waistline: People who increased their consumption of these vegetables gained weight over time, the study found.

More Evidence That Coffee Is Safe for Your Heart

Coffee lovers, rejoice. In the study, researchers found that drinking coffee was not associated with an increased risk of a condition called atrial fibrillation, which is a type of irregular heartbeat, in either men or women. "This is largest prospective study to date on the association between coffee consumption and risk of atrial fibrillation.

Health-Promoting Texts Could Help Battle Heart Disease

The health of heart disease patients might be improved by technology they're already carrying around in their pockets: cellphones. In a recent study, patients with coronary heart disease enrolled in a program to receive four text messages weekly on their cellphones, encouraging them to make heart-healthy lifestyle choices. For comparison, a separate group of patients with coronary heart disease didn't receive any text messages about their heart health.

A Rose by Any Name: Nebula Blossoms in Sweet Space Photo, Video

Omega Nebula, Swan Nebula, Checkmark Nebula, Horseshoe Nebula, Lobster Nebula — whatever you call it, the spectacular star-forming Messier 17 sparkles in a new photo. In this case, the rose's petals are picked out in the reddish glow of hydrogen gas, heated up by ultraviolet light released from the blue and white pinpricks of newly formed stars. The white at the center comes from the hottest gas emitting light that mingles with starlight, ESO officials said in a statement.

Blood Moon Tunes: Music to Make Your 'Supermoon' Lunar Eclipse Rock

As you settle in Sunday night (Sept. 27) to watch the supermoon lunar eclipse, kick back with some moon tunes as chosen by Space.com's staff. What might a supermoon lunar eclipse represent? NASA has contemplated the moon in song as well: Steven Williams from NASA's Planetary Science Division pulled together an infographic and long list of moon-inspired refrains.

Here Comes the Sun: Water Blasts on Comets Tied to Sunlight Cycle

The outbursts of water vapor seen emanating from comets are fueled by subsurface ice reservoirs, a new study suggests. Observations by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft show that surface ice on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which Rosetta has been orbiting since August 2014, appears and disappears on a daily cycle tied to illumination by the sun. "Water gas activity is modulated by the diurnal cycle, and we see that also the presence of ice on the surface is modulated in the same way," said study lead author Maria Cristina De Sanctis, a scientist at the Institute for Astrophysics and Space Planetology in Rome.

Fish scales to fangs: Surprising tale of how teeth got their bite

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The origins of the enamel that gives our teeth their bite is no ordinary fish tale.Scientists said on Wednesday fossil and genetic evidence indicates enamel did not originate in the teeth but in the scales of ancient fish that lived more than 400 million years ago, and only later became a key component in teeth. The researchers examined fossils of two primitive bony fish from the Silurian Period, a time of evolutionary advances in marine life, and found an enamel coating on their scales but no enamel on their teeth. In us, enamel is only found on teeth, and it is very important for their function, so it is natural to assume that it evolved there," said paleontologist Per Erik Ahlberg of Sweden's University of Uppsala, whose research appears in the journal Nature.

Grisly Discovery: 9,000-Year-Old Decapitated Skull Covered in Amputated Hands

Under limestone slabs in a cave in Brazil, scientists made a ghoulish new discovery: a decapitated skull covered in amputated hands. For example, in South America, heads of defeated enemies were often used as war trophies — the Arara people in the Brazilian Amazon used skulls of defeated enemies as musical instruments, the Inca turned skulls into drinking jars, and the Jivaro people of Ecuador shrunk heads to imprison the souls of foes. "Few Amerindian habits impressed the European colonizers more than the taking and displaying of human body parts, especially when decapitation was involved," said study lead author André Strauss, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.

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Tuesday, September 22, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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On Twitter, Astronaut Scott Kelly Chronicles His Yearlong Space Voyage

Scott Kelly just started the second half of the longest consecutive space mission a NASA astronaut has ever completed. To celebrate, he took to Twitter to answer questions from curious space enthusiasts on Earth. Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko launched on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday, March 27.

'Guevedoces': Rare Medical Condition Hides Child's Sex Until Age 12

Some children with a rare genetic condition appear female at birth but later develop a penis and testes around the time puberty begins. A new article in BBC Magazine tells the story of some children in the Dominican Republic with this condition, who are known in the country as Guevedoces, which roughly translates to "penis at 12." One child named Johnny was raised as a girl, but when he matured and neared puberty, he grew a penis and his testicles descended, according to the BBC. Because DHT is responsible for the development of male sex organs, the lack of DHT means the male organs don't develop properly, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Doctors to FDA: Don't Call Them 'Breakthrough' Drugs

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should avoid using words like "breakthrough" and "promising" to describe new drugs when making announcements aimed at the public, some researchers argue. These researchers contend that the general public may not understand the FDA's usage of these words. "Unless patients understand the FDA's usage of 'breakthrough,' they may have unwarranted confidence in the evidence supporting drug claims," researchers wrote in the Sept. 21 issue of the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

AstraZeneca taps crowd sourcing to find cancer drug cocktails

Drugmaker AstraZeneca is harnessing the wisdom of crowds to help mix tomorrow's cancer drug cocktails. The company said on Tuesday its decision to release preclinical data from more than 50 of its medicines was unprecedented in scale and would help accelerate the hunt for synergistic tumour-fighting drug combinations. The crowd sourcing initiative is being run as part of the DREAM Challenge, an open innovation non-profit biology project in which scientists pool ideas and crunch data.

Craig Venter's company in deal for whole exome tests at new low cost

A company formed by genome pioneer Craig Venter will offer clients of a South Africa-based insurance company whole exome sequencing - sequencing all protein-making genes in the human genome - at a price that marks yet another dramatic decline in the cost of gene sequencing, the two companies said on Tuesday. Venter's company, Human Longevity Inc, will provide the tests at a cost of $250 each through a special incentive program offered by Discovery Ltd, an insurer with clients in South Africa and the United Kingdom. Venter, the U.S. scientist who raced the U.S. government to map the human genome 15 years ago for a cost of $100,000, said the $250 price point per whole exome marks a new low in the price of gene sequencing.

Craig Venter's company in deal for whole exome tests at new low cost

Forget Fingerprints: You Can Be Identified by Your 'Microbial Cloud'

The results "demonstrate for the first time that individuals release their own personalized microbial cloud," James Meadow, the lead author of the study, said in a statement. Together, these bacteria make up what researchers call the human microbiome.

Long-Lost Tomb of Jewish 'Maccabee' Rebels Possibly Found

An "unusual" new archaeological find could be the long-lost Tomb of the Maccabees, a burial site of leaders of a band of Jewish rebels from the second century B.C. First excavated 150 years ago, this site was thought to be the mausoleum of a priest named Mattathias the Hasmonean and his five sons, who led a rebellion against Greek rule of Judea. The new excavations haven't fully solved the mystery, but archaeologists say they can't rule out that the Maccabees were buried there.

Welcome to Pluto! Dramatic Flyover Video Takes You There

A new video takes armchair explorers on a flyover tour of Pluto's stunning and varied landscapes. The new Pluto tour animation stitches together photos captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its historic flyby on July 14, which returned the first-ever up-close looks at the faraway dwarf planet. During the close encounter, New Horizons discovered, among other things, 2-mile-high (3.2 kilometers) ice mountains, a vast plain of ice dubbed Sputnik Planum and a dark area called Cthulhu Regio. All those features are highlighted in the new video, which was created by Stuart Robbins, a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Space Twins: Genetic Science Meets Space Travel on One-Year Mission

Does spaceflight affect the human body all the way down to the genetic level? Scientists working on NASA's one-year mission are taking the first steps toward answering those questions. Astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are living on the International Space Station for just shy of one Earth year.

3D Computer Chips Could Be 1,000 Times Faster Than Existing Ones

The new method, which relies on materials called carbon nanotubes, allows scientists to build the chip in three dimensions. The 3D design enables scientists to interweave memory, which stores data, and the number-crunching processors in the same tiny space, said Max Shulaker, one of the designers of the chip, and a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering at Stanford University in California. Reducing the distance between the two elements can dramatically reduce the time computers take to do their work, Shulaker said Sept. 10 here at the "Wait, What?" technology forum hosted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the research wing of the U.S. military.

Walk with Elephants: Explore African Sanctuary on Google Street View

Thanks to Google, it's now possible to frolic with elephants in your living room (or anywhere else your Internet-connected device happens to be). Save the Elephants, a research and conservation organization operating in Samburu National Reserve in Kenya, recently teamed up with Google to help share the story of Africa's imperiled elephants. Using truck- and airplane-mounted cameras inside the wildlife preserve, as well as photos taken by satellites in space, Google captured images of Samburu's elephant herds doing elephant things — like splashing in the mud and hanging out in the shade.

Psychology of Immigration: Why Responses to Migrant Crisis Vary

There's also a gulf of difference between how European citizens and their governments are responding to the influx of asylum seekers from Syria, North Africa and other Middle Eastern nations. "One of the first things to appreciate is that the anti-immigrant reactions are really natural, and in some ways fundamental to who we are," said Steven Neuberg, a psychologist at Arizona State University who researches prejudice and in-group/out-group relations. Evolutionarily, the brain is primed for specific threats that would have loomed over our earliest relatives, such as dangers to physical safety, infectious disease and threats to resources, Neuberg told Live Science.

Sainthood for Missionary Priest Is Disputed by Native Tribes

Pope Francis is set to canonize the Rev. Junípero Serra, a Franciscan priest who founded the first missions in the state of California, on Sept. 23. Several American Indian tribes oppose the canonization, saying that Serra was responsible for the enslavement and death of tens of thousands of indigenous tribespeople and the destruction of their culture. Some tribes are circulating petitions to protest the canonization.

Shades of 'Star Trek'? Quantum Teleportation Sets Distance Record

A record-breaking distance has been achieved in the bizarre world of quantum teleportation, scientists say. The scientists teleported photons (packets of light) across a spool of fiber optics 63 miles (102 kilometers) long, four times farther than the previous record. This research could one day lead to a "quantum Internet" that offers next-generation encryption, the scientists said.

Common Pregnancy Complications Tied to Heart Disease Deaths Later On

Pregnant women who experience certain complications related to their pregnancies may have an increased risk of dying from heart disease later in life, a new study suggests. Researchers found that the women in the study who had high levels of sugar in the urine during pregnancy were about four times more likely to die from heart disease over the 50-year study, compared with the women who did not have high levels of sugar in their urine when they were pregnant. The investigators also found that the women who experienced a decline in their levels of hemoglobin during pregnancy were about twice as likely to die from heart disease later in life, compared with the pregnant women who did not experience the decline.

Sex After a Heart Attack? Doctors Give the All Clear

Sex does not increase heart attack survivors' risk of having another attack, except in rare cases, a new study finds. The finding may provide comfort for countless heart attack survivors. Many are unsure whether the vigorous activity of sex can trigger another heart attack, and there is limited and some contradictory data on the issue, the researchers said.

Eyes in the Sky: How Satellite Images Help People on the Ground

The benefits of spaceflight extend far beyond the borders of countries capable of launching satellites, NASA officials say. On Thursday (Sept. 17), officials with NASA and the U.S. Agency For International Development (USAID) showcased the ways space science connects to developing countries as well. The two organizations hosted a panel discussion in Washington, D.C. called "Connecting Space to Village: Observing Earth from Space and How This Supports USAID Development Goals," which involved astronauts, USAID officials and scientists.

Sunday's 'Supermoon' Total Lunar Eclipse: When and Where to See It

As with all lunar eclipses, the region of visibility for Sunday's blood-moon lunar eclipse will encompass more than half of our planet. The lunar eclipse will also feature the "biggest" full moon (in apparent size) of 2015, since the moon will also be at perigee on the very same day ? Almost everyone in the Americas and Western Europe will have a beautiful view of this eclipse.

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