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Sunday, October 4, 2015

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Six experts vie for top U.N. climate science job

By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - Six candidates are vying to become head of the U.N.'s top authority on climate change science this week, seeking to narrow down uncertainties about future warming to guide a trillion-dollar shift to greener energies. Top scientists - all men - from Austria, Belgium, Sierra Leone, South Korea, Switzerland and the United States will seek to become chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a vote due on Tuesday at an IPCC meeting in Croatia. Governments have to pick a successor to Rajendra Pachauri of India, who quit the Nobel Peace Prize winning panel in February, after 13 years, when a female researcher in India accused him of sexual harassment, an allegation he denies.

Six experts vie for top U.N. climate science job

Big gulp: feeding strategy of blue whales revealed

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The blue whale is the largest creature on Earth and perhaps the biggest that ever lived, so it is no surprise it has a huge appetite. But the strategies this behemoth uses to get enough food has not been well understood - until now. Scientists said on Friday a study of blue whales off California's coast that used tags to track their movements and their prey, tiny shrimp-like crustaceans called krill, showed these marine mammals are not indiscriminate grazers as long thought. ...

Mega Tsunami with 50-Foot Waves Swallowed Ancient Island

A mega tsunami taller than a 50-story skyscraper once engulfed an island off the west coast of Africa, researchers say. This finding suggests the giant landslides and killer waves that such tsunamis can trigger might pose a major hazard to people living on islands and coasts, scientists added. Tsunamis are monster waves that are often caused by earthquakes.

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Saturday, October 3, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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Dazzling Rocket Launch Marks 100th Liftoff for United Launch Alliance

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket blasted a communications satellite into orbit today (Oct. 2), marking the 100th consecutive successful liftoff for the company.

The Real Mars Lander in 'The Martian': Fact Checking the Film's NASA Probe

A historic NASA spacecraft makes more than just a cameo appearance in "The Martian," the new Ridley Scott movie about an astronaut stranded on Mars. The 20th Century Fox film, which opened in U.S. theaters on Friday (Oct. 2), follows NASA's third crewed mission to land on the Red Planet in 2035. By the movie's timeline, Ares 3 crew member Mark Watney (Matt Damon) walks on Mars 23 years after the space agency's most recent real-life "martian," the robotic rover Curiosity, arrived to search for environments habitable to supporting past and present life.

Lost 'Epic of Gilgamesh' Verse Depicts Cacophonous Abode of Gods

The new finding, a clay tablet, reveals a previously unknown "chapter" of the epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia. In 2011, the Sulaymaniyah Museum in Slemani, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, purchased a set of 80 to 90 clay tablets from a known smuggler. The large block of clay, etched with cuneiform writing, was still caked in mud when Al-Rawi advised the Sulaymaniyah Museum to purchase artifact for the agreed upon $800.

Oregon Mass Shooting: How to Talk to Kids About Violence

Hearing about violent events in the news can evoke feelings of sadness, grief, helplessness and anger in little ones, according to the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress (NCCTS) at the University of California at Los Angeles. Instead, parents have to walk a fine line — being honest without being gory, accepting the natural emotions that come while simultaneously reassuring kids that caregivers will do everything to protect them, said Dr. Matthew Lorber, the acting director of the Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Department at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "That's the time when you can still have blissful ignorance," Lorber told Live Science.

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Friday, October 2, 2015

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Lockheed-Boeing rocket firm poised for rare commercial launch

By Irene Klotz Cape Canaveral, Fla (Reuters) - A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 rocket is being prepared for a commercial satellite launch on Friday, a market the Lockheed Martin and Boeing partnership has said it aims to grow to as its monopoly on U.S. military launches ends. ULA has four commercial launches on its 2016 schedule, including an Earth-imaging spacecraft for DigitalGlobe, a communications satellite for EchoStar Corp and a pair of space station cargo ships for Orbital ATK, the company said. The unmanned rocket scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida will carry a communications satellite for Mexico.

Satellites Watch Hurricane Joaquin Grow Into Category 4 Storm (Video, Images)

As Hurricane Joaquin barrels across the Atlantic Ocean, NASA satellites are tracking the storm to determine how it will affect residents along the East Coast of the United States. A new video of the hurricane taken by NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement satellite shows a 3D view of how the storm grew and changed on Tuesday (Sept. 29). Today (Oct. 1) Joaquin reached Category 4 status, with maximum sustained winds near 130 mph (210 km/hour), according to NASA.

Substance found to curb fuel fireballs from air and vehicle crashes

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Aiming to reduce dangerous explosions after plane crashes and truck accidents, scientists have developed a substance that can be added to fuel to curb formation of a fine mist that can erupt into a deadly fireball after a collision. Researchers said on Thursday they had created a synthetic polymer that can suppress post-crash fuel mist by making fuel droplets fall like rain rather than remain suspended in the air. As a fuel additive, it did not lessen engine power or efficiency, but lowered soot formation, they said.

Double trouble: asteroid, volcanoes implicated in dinosaur doom

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It was a combination of calamities - an asteroid strike followed by vast volcanic eruptions half a world away - that doomed the dinosaurs and many other creatures 66 million years ago. The two events roiled Earth by throwing dust, ash and harmful fumes like carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide into the air, altering the climate and killing off about 75 percent of all species in one of Earth's worst mass extinctions. The researchers said the asteroid strike occurred 66.04 million years ago, plus or minus about 30,000 years.

Fly Through Pluto Moon Charon's Giant Canyon in Spectacular New Video

Amazing new images show the enormous canyon system on Pluto's big moon Charon in unprecedented detail. The photos were captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its historic flyby of Pluto on July 14. Mission team members combined some of the images into a new video that lets viewers fly over Charon's tortured surface.

Russian Cargo Ship Arrives at Space Station

Russia's uncrewed Progress 61 freighter, also known as 61P, docked with the space station's Zvezda service module at 6:52 p.m. EDT (2252 GMT), while the two craft were zooming together over the North Atlantic Ocean. The cargo vessel, which is stocked with more than 3 tons of food and supplies for the astronauts aboard the orbiting lab, had launched atop a Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan just 6 hours earlier. Progress 61 will remain docked to the International Space Station (ISS) until December, when the ship will depart, full of trash, and burn up in Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean, NASA officials said.

Moon Express contracts Rocket Lab for launches to land spacecraft on the moon

Silicon Valley's Moon Express Inc said it has signed up Lockheed Martin-backed Rocket Lab to launch its robotic spacecraft as it seeks to become the first private venture to reach the moon. The deal increases its chances of winning a $30 million Google Inc prize for the first privately funded lunar landing. Moon Express was awarded $1 million by Google this year as the only team shooting for the moon to flight test a prototype of its lander.

Deadly piglet virus may have entered U.S. on 'reusable' feed bags: USDA

By P.J. Huffstutter and Danny Na CHICAGO (Reuters) - The deadly piglet virus that killed millions of U.S. pigs over the past two years may have entered the country on large bags typically used to transport feed and other bulk products, the Agriculture Department said. The report, released on Wednesday and dated Sept. 24, said the agency does not have definitive proof of how Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv) initially arrived in the United States. The most likely scenario was that the virus came from the use of Flexible Intermediate Bulk Containers - also known as FIBCs or "tote bags", according to the report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).

Student-built solar motorbikes hit the road in Kenya

Surrounded by motorbikes running on polluting fossil fuels, Omondi sits astride his solar-powered rechargeable motorcycle, which uses technology developed by students from the University of Nairobi. Charles Ogingo, Robert Achoge and James Ogola – all final year students – have built a system they call Ecotran, which captures the sun's energy, stores it in batteries, and uses it to charge a motorcycle's electric motor.

Atlas rocket blasts off with Mexican communications satellite

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - An unmanned Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from a seaside launch pad in Florida on Friday to put a communications satellite into orbit for Mexico. The 195-foot (59-meter) tall rocket, built and flown by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, lifted off at 6:28 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Perched on top of the rocket was the Boeing-built Morelos-3 communications satellite, a duplicate of a spacecraft lost during a Russian Proton rocket launch in May. It was the 100th launch for ULA since its formation in 2006, all of which have been successful.

With Hurricane Joaquin, the Only Prediction Is Uncertainty

As Hurricane Joaquin strengthens over the Bahamas, forecasters are split on how badly the storm could batter the U.S. East Coast, if it even makes landfall at all. "We don't know what is actually going to be felt from Joaquin. It's too early — it's still sitting in the middle of the Bahamas," said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Does 'The Martian' Movie Do the Book Justice? Yes. Yes, It Does

The new movie, opening Friday, trades some of the book's nonstop danger for glorious Martian vistas and more NASA at work, and I'm not complaining. The movie "The Martian," is based on Andy Weir's book of the same name, and tells the story of an astronaut who is accidentally left behind on Mars and must struggle to survive. When watching "The Martian," all I could think was that the movie version of protagonist Mark Watney had it easy.

'The Martian' and Reality: How NASA Will Get Astronauts to Mars

NASA wants the world to know that putting boots on Mars is not just a sci-fi dream. Setting up a crewed outpost on Mars is NASA's chief long-term goal in the realm of human spaceflight. Indeed, the space agency's operational robotic Mars craft — the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, and the orbiters Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) — can be seen as scouts for the human pioneers to come, NASA officials say.

Snakes Use 'Leg Genes' to Make Phalluses

Snakes lack limbs, but new research finds that they still have DNA crucial to limb development lurking in their genomes. A new study, published today (Oct. 1) in the journal Developmental Cell, reveals that the same genetic snippets that control the outgrowth of limbs (called enhancers) during embryonic development in mammals are crucial to the development of the phallus in both mammals and reptiles — including legless snakes. "It tells us that we are a little bit myopic in thinking about what these limb enhancers are doing in mammals," said study leader Doug Menke, a genetics researcher at the University of Georgia.

All Ears! What Human Ancestors' Hearing Was Like

Human ancestors that lived about 2 million years ago had hearing abilities similar to those of chimpanzees, but their ears had some slight differences that made their hearing more humanlike, a new study finds. The finding — based on virtual models of early hominin (the ancestors of modern humans), modern chimp and human ears — suggests that, unlike chimps, these now-extinct human ancestors had a remarkable sensitivity to high-frequency sounds. "[The hominins'] hearing pattern is similar to a chimpanzee['s], but slightly different," said lead researcher Rolf Quam, an assistant professor of biological anthropology at Binghamton University in New York.

Bronze Age Britons Mummified Their Dead, Analysis Reveals

The rainy climate of the British Isles might not seem like the best place to preserve human bodies through time, but a new scientific analysis of ancient bones reveals that Bronze Age Britain was a mummy hotspot. Specifically, archaeologists found that human remains had been preserved in various ways during the Bronze Age, a period lasting from about 2200 B.C. to 750 B.C. "The results demonstrate that Bronze Age populations throughout Britain practiced mummification on a proportion of their dead, although the criteria for selection are not yet certain," the researchers wrote.

General Electric producing science fiction podcast series

In a sign that what is old is new again, U.S. conglomerate General Electric Co is producing its own science fiction podcast series in an effort to raise its profile among a younger, tech-savvy audience. GE, in partnership with The Slate Group's podcast network Panoply, is running "The Message," a fictional eight-episode podcast that will follow the decoding of a 70 year-old message from outer space. "It's science fiction meets real science," said Andy Goldberg, GE's global creative director.

General Electric producing science fiction podcast series

Vaccines May Protect Kids Against Strokes, Too

Parents have yet one more reason to vaccinate their children: Routine immunizations may reduce the risk of childhood stroke, according to a new study. Childhood strokes are rare, estimated to affect between three and 13 children per 100,000. The new study, led by Dr. Heather Fullerton of University of California, San Francisco, confirmed previous findings that minor infections may trigger acute ischemic strokes in children who are at risk.

30-Foot Fingernails: The Curious Science of World's Longest Nails

A man in India earned a Guinness World Record this week for doing, well, nothing at all. He didn't eat a bunch of hot dogs or jump off a building. All he did was forgo basic hygiene, by growing out his fingernails for an astonishingly long time.

ULA needs relief on Russian engines before GPS launch bid: CEO

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, on Friday said it would not bid in a U.S. Air Force competition to launch a GPS satellite unless it received some relief from a ban on use of Russian rocket engines. ULA Chief Executive Tory Bruno told reporters in Cape Canaveral, Florida, that the company was seeking a partial waiver on trade sanctions enacted last year that ban U.S. military use of the Russian RD-180 engine that powers ULA's primary workhorse Atlas 5 rocket. Bruno said the company needed a decision on that issue before it could submit a bid for the GPS launch competition, which marks the first time in nearly a decade that launches of large U.S. military and satellites will be opened to competition.

Ring in Oktoberfest with These Space Beers

In 2014, the Oregon-based Ninkasi Brewing Co. sent vials of brewer's yeast on a rocket to more than 70 miles (112 kilometers) above the Earth. The final product is an imperial stout called Ground Control, which has now been taste-tested and approved by members of the Space.com staff (check out the video). Ground Control is available to the public, but if you can't find it in your area, we have a long list of cosmic-themed beers to make your Oktoberfest a little more out-of-this-world.

NASA Satellite Spies Hurricane Joaquin Replacing an Eye

Hurricane Joaquin, a Category 4 storm that is currently battering the central Bahamas, appears to be replacing its eye, according to weather forecasters. New satellite views of the intense hurricane appear to show the storm's eye obscured, which could indicate that a new eye is forming around the old one, NASA said. This process, known as eyewall replacement, occurs naturally in powerful tropical cyclones.

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