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Monday, April 18, 2016

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Exclusive: Florida wins contest for OneWeb satellite manufacturing facility - sources

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - OneWeb Ltd, an internet-via-satellite venture backed by Richard Branson's Virgin Group and other high-profile companies, will build a factory to mass produce small satellites near NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sources involved in the agreement told Reuters. OneWeb plans an initial production run of 900 satellites to blanket the globe with high-speed internet access. The company has raised $500 million from Virgin, India's Bharti Enterprises, chipmaker Qualcomm, Hughes Network Systems, Intelsat, The Coca-Cola Co., and Mexico's ...

Solar powered bid to bring modernity to developing world

By Jim Drury A 40 meter long photovoltaic computer which provides clean water, while generating electricity to recharge external devices, has been designed by an Italian company for use in the developing world. Watly, set up by entrepreneur Marco Attisani, has started an Indiegogo campaign to fund the third version of its solar technology. "What you are looking at is a big machine, it's an infrastructural machine. It's 40 meters long, 15 meters wide, and 15 tonnes," Attisani told Reuters. It can clean contaminated water, including ocean water, within two hours. The photovoltaic panels located on the roof generate off-grid electricity to power the internal electronics of the machine, and also for recharging external devices such as mobiles phones and portable computers. "Watly purifies water from any source of contamination - chemical, bacteriological, or physical - without the need of filterings," said Attisani.

Exclusive: Florida wins contest for OneWeb satellite manufacturing facility - sources

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - OneWeb Ltd, a privately owned startup bankrolled by Richard Branson's Virgin Group and other well-known firms, will build a factory to mass produce small satellites near NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, two sources involved in the project told Reuters. OneWeb plans an initial production run of 900 satellites to provide global, high-speed Internet access as early as 2019. The multibillion-dollar network would be more than 10 times larger than any previous satellite constellation.

Shackled Skeletons Could Be Ancient Greek Rebels

A trove of shackled skeletons unearthed in a mass grave near Athens may have once belonged to the followers of a tyrant who sought to overthrow the leader of ancient Greece. "These might be the remains of people who were part of this coup in Athens in 632 [B.C.], the Coup of Cylon," said Kristina Killgrove, a bioarchaeologist at the University of West Florida, in Pensacola, who was not involved in the current study. The mass grave was uncovered as archaeologists were excavating a huge cemetery in the ancient port city of Phaleron, just 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) from Athens.

The Real Reason AI Won't Take Over Anytime Soon

Artificial intelligence has had its share of ups and downs recently. In what was widely seen as a key milestone for artificial intelligence (AI) researchers, one system beat a former world champion at a mind-bendingly intricate board game. In early March, a Google-made artificial intelligence system beat former world champ Lee Sedol four matches to one at an ancient Chinese game, called Go, that is considered more complex than chess, which was previously used as a benchmark to assess progress in machine intelligence.

Turn Your Photos Into Fine-Art 'Paintings' on Free Website

Users can upload photos and choose an art style from a selection of well-known paintings, illustrations and sketches in the online database — or even add new ones. "The algorithm uses so-called deep, artificial neural networks — a mathematical model built of units called neurons linked with each other," Kidzi?ski told Live Science in an email. One example, shared by Twitter user @claudeschneider, combined a photograph of a dancer posing in a rocky landscape with the Picasso painting "Woman with Mandolin" (1910), to create a Cubist ballerina.

Lost Wright Brothers' 'Flying Machine' Patent Resurfaces

The patent file for the Wright brothers' original "Flying Machine" has returned to the National Archives, after being misplaced 36 years ago. The Wright brothers didn't wait for the patent to be granted to take flight. On Dec. 17, 1903, the brothers lofted their flying machine into the air for 12 seconds, flying 120 feet at Kitty Hawk, on North Carolina's Outer Banks.

Does The Full Moon Make Kids Hyper? Here's What Science Says

Kids really do sleep less when there's a full moon, but only by a few minutes, according to a new study that included children from a dozen countries. What's more, the study failed to find a link between the occurrence of the full moon and kids' activity levels, debunking the myth that kids are more hyper during a full moon. The study "provides solid evidence … that the associations between moon phases and children's sleep duration/activity behaviors are not meaningful from a public health standpoint," the researchers, from the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Ottawa, Canada, wrote in the March 24 issue of the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics.

Chemicals in Fast Food: Should You Be Worried?

People who eat fast food may be ingesting potentially harmful chemicals called phthalates, a new study finds — another reason to avoid eating these typically unhealthy foods, experts say. However, experts emphasize that most Americans are exposed to phthalates every day, and it's not clear exactly how much of this exposure comes from fast food. Still, for people who want to reduce their exposure to phthalates, a chemical used in plastics that can leach into foods, reducing fast food consumption could be one way to do this, said Dr. Kenneth Spaeth, chief of occupational and environmental medicine at Northwell Health, a health care network headquartered in Great Neck, New York.

Mysterious Outbreak: 5 Things to Know About Elizabethkingia

An outbreak of a rare bacterial illness that first appeared in Wisconsin has now popped up in two nearby states, officials say. This week, the Illinois Department of Public Health announced that a patient there died of an infection with the bacteria Elizabethkingia anophelis — the same bacteria that has infected 59 people in Wisconsin and one person in Michigan. Here are some important things to know about the outbreak.

A robot to teach kids coding

By Ben Gruber Cambridge, MASS (Reuters) - A robot named Root has been developed to expose kids of all ages to coding in a way that brings the often daunting world of computer science to life. Root looks like a smoke detector but is actually a sophisticated robot. Zivthan Dubrovsky of Harvard's Wyss Institute recalls testing out Root with kids for the first time. "If you ask kids can you make a text based java script line follower?

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Saturday, April 16, 2016

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Impaled polar bear sculpture highlights global warming threat

A sculpture of an impaled polar bear went on display on Friday in front of the Danish parliament to highlight the impact of global warming. The seven-meter high metal sculpture named "Unbearable" depicts a graph of carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere sky-rocketing into the belly of a polar bear, gutting its abdomen and almost penetrating the back of the beast. Polar bears are among the animal species most threatened by the increase in global temperatures.

Why Do So Many Earthquakes Strike Japan?

A magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck southern Japan today, less than two days after a 6.2-magnitude temblor rocked the same region, triggering tsunami advisories in the area. The most recent earthquake struck the Kumamoto region on Japan's Kyushu Island early Saturday (April 16) at 1:25 a.m. local time (12:25 p.m. ET on April 15), according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). With residents of the Kumamoto region reeling from two sizable earthquakes in as many days, and with memories of the massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that devastated Tohoku, Japan, in 2011 not far from people's minds, what is it about this part of the world that makes it so seismically active?

Experimental inflatable module attached to space station

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - A NASA ground-control team on Saturday used a robot arm to unpack an expandable module and attach it to the International Space Station, setting the stage for a novel test of a habitat for astronauts, researchers and even tourists. The 3,100-pound (1,400 kg) module, manufactured and owned by Bigelow Aerospace, was launched aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule that reached the station on Sunday. The module was attached to the station at 5:36 am EDT (0936 GMT) as the station flew about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, the U.S. space agency said during a live broadcast on NASA TV. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, is scheduled to be inflated with air in late May, beginning a two-year experiment to see how it holds up in the harsh environment of space.

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Friday, April 15, 2016

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DNA analysis could help improve your workout: study

By Edward Baran LONDON (Reuters) - A new study suggests that athletes using DNA-matched training improved their performance almost three times more than those on mismatched programs. The study, published in Biology of Sport and conducted at the University of Central Lancashire, reviewed the performance of 28 young sportsmen and 39 young male soccer players over eight weeks. Reigning British Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford has also used the genetically guided information from the training test used in the study, DNAFit, as he prepares to go for gold in Rio.

Ancient Human Sacrifice Had Gruesome Role in Creating Hierarchies

A new study shows that in societies where social hierarchies were taking shape, ritual human sacrifices targeted poor people, helping the powerful control the lower classes and keep them in their place. "By using human sacrifice to punish taboo violations, demoralize the underclass and instill fear of social elites, power elites were able to maintain and build social control," study lead author Joseph Watts said in a statement. Evidence also hints that the practice was widespread, Watts told Live Science in an email.

Silvery Hairs Turn Ants into Walking Mirrors

One ant species in the Sahara Desert is covered by a silvery sheen of body hair that acts as a wearable sun shield for the creatures, a new study finds. The silvery hairs completely reflect the light like mirrors, preventing the ants from absorbing too much heat. "The ability to reflect solar radiation by means of total internal reflection is a novel adaptive mechanism in desert animals, which gives an efficient thermal protection against the intense solar radiation," study co-author Serge Aron, an evolutionary biologist at the University Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, said in a statement.

Road Rage Science: Former NFL Player's Death Reveals Why We Lose It

Road rage may have played a role in the shooting death of former NFL player Will Smith in New Orleans over the weekend, police have said. Whether or not road rage is implicated, the incident highlights the real threat of what seem to be driver tantrums. And, according to scientists, freak-outs on the road can be considered a mental disorder, or at the very least, may stem from brain abnormalities.

Guys Give Each Other a Break on Weight (But Not Women)

When judged on attractiveness, men get a pass from other men about their weight, a new study finds. Men and women both judge other women as less attractive the fatter they are, scientists have found. "Maybe some people think beauty matters more for women than for men, but here, it's that this gender difference is more at the source," said study leader Sonia Oreffice, a professor of economics at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom.

'Love Handles' Transformed into Insulin-Producing Cells

A body part that many would wish away — their love handles — can be turned it into life-saving transplant: Researchers reprogramed fat cells from a person's waistline into pancreatic cells capable of producing the crucial hormone insulin. If further testing shows that the cells are safe to implant into a person's body, and effectively produce insulin once they are there, they could one day be used to treat people with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes, experts say. In a petri dish, researchers coaxed these reprogrammed pancreatic cells, called beta cells, to produce ample amounts of the hormone insulin, which helps the body turn food into fuel for muscles and organs such as the brain.

Skin Condition Linked to Risk of Aneurysm

The effects of psoriasis go far deeper than the skin: The condition may raise a person's risk of a potentially deadly aneurysm, a new study from Denmark finds. People in the study who had psoriasis — an inflammatory skin condition that causes red, scaly patches of skin — also had a greater risk of having an abdominal aortic aneurysm, according to the study, published today (April 14) in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. An abdominal aortic aneurysm is a relatively rare condition that occurs when the aorta, the large blood vessel that carries blood to the abdomen, becomes enlarged.

Here's the Best Way to Apologize, According to Science

We've all been there — after you've given what seems to you like a heartfelt apology, the other person just doesn't buy it. Well, science is here to help: An effective apology has six key elements, according to a new study. "Apologies really do work, but you should make sure you hit as many of the six key elements as possible," Roy Lewicki, the lead author of the study and a professor emeritus of management and human resources at The Ohio State University, said in a statement.

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Thursday, April 14, 2016

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Search begins for clues in prehistoric crater linked to demise of dinosaurs

Scientists have begun drilling for core samples, nearly 5,000 feet below the seabed, of a prehistoric crater caused by an asteroid collision that is linked to the extinction of dinosaurs. The theory that their demise 66 million years ago was linked to the asteroid impact was first proposed in 1980. "The impact caused the extinction of some 75 percent of species that existed in that period," said Dr Jaime Urrutia-Fucugauchi, of the Institute of Geophysics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Too Much Alcohol? Drinking Guidelines Vary by Country

Drinking three or four alcoholic drinks in a day, on occasion, is considered safe in the U.S., but in Sweden and Germany, that's well over the amount that health authorities recommend. In the study, researchers analyzed safe drinking guidelines from 37 countries, looking at what each country defined as one "standard drink," as well as how many drinks it took to reach the recommended daily or weekly limit. They found that the amount of alcohol in a standard drink varied by 250 percent among the countries, from a low of 8 grams of alcohol in Iceland, to a high of 20 grams of alcohol in Austria.

Scientists: Greenland ice sheet is melting freakishly early

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists say Greenland's massive ice sheet this week started melting freakishly early thanks to a weather system that brought unseasonably warm temperatures and rain.

Zika Virus Does Cause Microcephaly, Report Confirms

The Zika virus can cause microcephaly — a condition in which an infant has an abnormally small brain and head — when the infant's mother is infected during pregnancy, according to a new report, published today (April 13) in the New England Journal of Medicine. The report from researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concluded that if a woman is infected with Zika during pregnancy, the result can indeed be microcephaly and other congenital problems in the babies of those women. Researchers had strongly suspected that a link existed, but they needed sufficient evidence to definitively establish that there is a direct, cause-and-effect relationship between the virus and microcephaly — not just an association between the two.

Paralyzed Man Moves Fingers with Brain Implant

A 24-year-old man whose arms and legs were paralyzed by a spinal cord injury has regained the ability to move his hand, wrist and several fingers using an electrical device in a lab, according to a new study. Burkhart became paralyzed at age 19 after he dove into a shallow wave at a beach and hit the sandy bottom, severely injuring his spinal cord. But now, using the device, Burkhart has regained functional movements, said Chad Bouton, the division leader of neurotechnology and analytics at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in New York.

Why People 'Lose Themselves' When They Take LSD

When people take the psychedelic drug LSD, they may feel as if the boundary that separates them from the rest of the world has dissolved, as if they are connected with everything. Ego dissolution is not a universally positive or negative experience, said Enzo Tagliazucchi, a co-author of the new study and a neuroscientist at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam.

Watch an Amazing Encounter Between Two Deadly Predators (Video)

A new video, captured by a wildlife photographer, provides a nonlethal answer: The video shows a wolf approaching a lynx mom and her kittens in the snowy reaches of the Carpathian Mountains in Poland. Zenek Wojtas, the wildlife photographer who caught the rare encounter, viewed the exchange as a friendly overture from one top predator to another. Both creatures were once on the brink of extinction, though their numbers have rebounded in recent years as a result of intensive efforts to protect the animals from both hunting and habitat loss.

Jeepers, Peepers! Tully Monster's Eyes Prove It's a Vertebrate

A tiny clue hidden in the bizarre eyes of the 300-million-year-old remains of a "Tully monster" has helped scientists determine that the curious creature is a vertebrate, a new study finds. Researchers analyzed the so-called monster's eyes, and found that they held two different kinds of pigment cells. Only vertebrates have these pigment cells that resemble sausages and meatballs, indicating that Tully (Tullimonstrum gregarium) wasn't an invertebrate, but rather had a backbone, they said.

Light-Up Device Lets You 'Talk' to Fireflies

One of summer's most magical sights is an otherwise ordinary field or backyard illuminated by tiny, pulsing points of living light, as fireflies emerge at dusk. With the device, which resembles the insect it was built to mimic, users can communicate with fireflies by pushing a single button to emit stored patterns of light pulses that copy actual firefly signals, issuing a "come hither" message that attracts fireflies and lets users observe them up close. Scientists have found that firefly species generate unique light patterns to communicate with their own kind and to attract mates.

Rare Collection of Shakespeare Plays Turns Up in Scottish Mansion

William Shakespeare's First Folio —the Bard of Avon's first collected edition of 38 plays, published in 1623, shortly after his death —is among the world's rarest and most valued books. The folio was discovered in the collection of the Mount Stuart house, on Scotland's Isle of Bute, and ithas been authenticated by Emma Smith, a professor of Shakespeare at the University of Oxford. At the time of Shakespeare's death, at age 52 in 1616, only about half of his plays had been published.

Supersonic Plane Sends Shock Waves Rippling Across the Sun (Photo)

A supersonic plane recently zoomed past the sun, and its light-bending shock waves were captured in a stunning new image. The plane, a T-38C manned by a pilot for the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, was photographed using an updated version of a 150-year-old technique called Schlieren photography. Schlieren photography typically uses a bright light source and a speckled background to reveal changes in the density of air.

U.N. panel to study toughest 1.5C limit on global warming

The U.N.'s panel of climate scientists agreed on Thursday to study how to limit global warming to the toughest target set by world leaders, saying even small rises in temperatures could be harmful. The panel would look into ways to restrict the rise in temperatures to 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times after a 195-nation summit in Paris agreed in December to try and phase out net greenhouse gas emissions this century. Hoesung Lee, chair of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said there were "serious risks" with even minor rises in temperatures from current levels, for instance to coral reefs and to coasts from rising sea levels.

Beer brewers toast Australian gluten-free barley

By Colin Packham SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian scientists say they have developed the world's first WHO-approved "gluten-free" barley, a breakthrough for global beer manufacturers which have had to use alternatives to barley such as rice and sorghum to brew gluten-free beer. Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said on Friday it had sold 70 tonnes of the new Kebari barley to Germany's largest brewer Radeberger, which has produced a beer to be sold in local supermarkets. "Gluten-free barley will be highly sought after, with European brewers particularly interested," said John O'Brien, a brewer of gluten-free beer in Melbourne.

U.N. panel to study toughest 1.5C limit on global warming

Heat kills: Global warming surge may rout Great Barrier Reef's natural defences

By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - A heat surge from global warming would overwhelm the natural ability of coral in Australia's Great Barrier Reef to survive seasonal temperature changes, in much the way sun bathers would burn if they did not build their tan slowly. A study released on Thursday examined 27 years of temperature data along the world's biggest reef. It found that corals were able to cope with gains in water temperatures when the heat built up step-by-step, rather than abruptly.

Heat kills: Global warming surge may rout Great Barrier Reef's natural defenses

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