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Smartphones To Blame For Limp Handshakes  

A new study in the Journal of Hand Therapy finds that millennials constant texting, snapping, scrolling and gaming are causing the muscles in their hands to weaken — especially the guys.

 
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False Northern Lights alert issued to entire UK because of a lawnmower  

But freshly cut grass is the olfactory equivalent, right?

An alert that the Northern Lights would be visible across all of Great Britain last night was wrongly issued because a sit-on lawnmower disturbed scientific instruments.…

 
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Meet 'Adonis,' Europe's oldest known living tree  

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A Bosnian pine living in the highlands of Greece has been shown to be more than 1,075 years, making it the oldest known living tree in Europe. The tree's advanced age was determined by counting its annual rings. Because of its venerable age and where it was found, the scientists dubbed the ancient pine "Adonis," after the Greek god of beauty and desire. The tree lives in a barren alpine landscape at the upper limit of tree line, along with about a dozen other aging members of its species, Pinus heldreichii.

Image credit: Soumaya Belmecheri, University of Arizona

 
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Abalone larvae  

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This picture, taken during a lab experiment, shows abalone larvae that have recently settled and are browsing on a red algal surface. The larval surface receptors controlling the events of metamorphosis have been activated by contact with unique peptides at the alga's surface. In a project previously supported by the National Science Foundation, researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, discovered that some red algae produced chemical signals that regulate the metamorphosis of abalone, from its larval stage to its mature form.

Image credit: Robert Sisson, ©National Geographic Society

 
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No, we haven't found liquid water on Mars, says NASA  

New observations don't contradict Martian wet patch theories, but dry them up a lot

The idea that seasonal dark streaks on Mars indicate the presence of liquid water turns out to be a dry argument.…

 
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Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari review how data will destroy human freedom  
It's a chilling prospect, but the AI we've created could transform human nature, argues this spellbinding new book by the author of Sapiens

At the heart of this spellbinding book is a simple but chilling idea: human nature will be transformed in the 21st century because intelligence is uncoupling from consciousness. We are not going to build machines any time soon that have feelings like we have feelings: that's consciousness. Robots won't be falling in love with each other (which doesn't mean we are incapable of falling in love with robots). But we have already built machines vast data-processing networks that can know our feelings better than we know them ourselves: that's intelligence. Google the search engine, not the company doesn't have beliefs and desires of its own. It doesn't care what we search for and it won't feel hurt by our behaviour. But it can process our behaviour to know what we want before we know it ourselves. That fact has the potential to change what it means to be human.

Yuval Noah Harari's previous book, the global bestseller Sapiens, laid out the last 75,000 years of human history to remind us that there is nothing special or essential about who we are. We are an accident. Homo sapiens is just one possible way of being human, an evolutionary contingency like every other creature on the planet. That book ended with the thought that the story of homo sapiens could be coming to an end. We are at the height of our power but we may also have reached its limit. Homo Deus makes good on this thought to explain how our unparalleled ability to control the world around us is turning us into something new.

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NIST spins atomic gyroscope to allow navigation without GPS  

Wait, there's more: it's also an accelerometer

The United States' National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has thinks it can use a cloud of atoms as a gyroscope.…

 
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Berkeley's Soda Tax Appears To Cut Consumption Of Sugary Drinks  

According to a new study, the nation's first soda tax succeeded in cutting consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. But there's uncertainty about whether the effect will be permanent.

 
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Computers Are For Girls, Too  
I remember three things about my first computer science class in college. First, improbably, the professor was named Ramm, as in "random access memory." Second, the class was about processors, and I only had a vague idea what a processor was. Third, it was the last computer science class for most of my female classmates, who quickly decided they'd rather major in something else.

I never would have guessed that my time as a computer science student would turn out to be pretty much the high water mark for women in the field. The percentage of computer science majors who are women has gone down from 37 percent in 1984 to just 18 percent today. In other words, on average my daughters are half as likely to major in computer science as I was 30 years ago.

My daughters are half as likely to major in computer science as I was 30 years ago.

But the young women in this video are defying these odds -- they're pursuing careers in computer science and dismantling stereotypes about the field. I love hearing them talk about the sense of empowerment and joy that coding brings them. Kimberly got a standing ovation from her high school English classmates when she demonstrated a book review app she made. Kayla is preserving and sharing the rich history of her community with an app that customizes multimedia walking tours. Courtney helped design the landing legs on a rocket when she interned at SpaceX!



The gross underrepresentation of women in computer science is not just a problem for the girls who are left out. It's a problem for all of us, because we're not benefitting from the creativity girls have to offer. There's a mountain of research showing that diversity makes for better companies and better products -- that we're more innovative when we work in teams with different kinds of people -- yet the gender diversity in tech has been getting worse for decades.

One reason why is that somewhere along the way, society decided that computers are for boys. Or, as Aishwarya says, "guys in hoodies." And this toxic stereotype becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, virtually guaranteeing that computer science is indeed a male-dominated field.

First, since girls aren't supposed to be into computers, they aren't exposed to computer science when they're young, and even if they are, they often aren't encouraged to pursue their interests in the field. That helps explain why only 22 percent of the high school students who take the AP computer science exam today are girls. Kayla didn't know she wanted to be a computer scientist until she'd already started a totally different career, in library science. It was only when she started training staff to use the library's software that she realized she might be interested in making software herself, so she went back to college for a second time to be a computer scientist. Kimberly had never heard of computer science until she saw it was one of the classes she could take at her local community college.

The gross underrepresentation of women in computer science is... a problem for all of us.

The idea that computers are for boys doesn't just keep girls out of the field, though. It also drives women out. A host of implicit biases affect the way tech companies recruit, train, and promote--and make it easier for men to get ahead.

Luckily, there are great organizations like the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT), whose mission is to increase the number of girls and women in tech. NCWIT and groups like it aim to make it easier for girls to discover that they love computers--and make it easier for women who love computer science to make a career in it. Eventually, as more and more girls choose this path, it won't seem like computer science is just for boys.

Aishwarya, Courtney, Kayla, and Kimberly all talk about the excitement of using code to turn an idea into a piece of software that can change the world, of creating something important from nothing. Let me tell you, it is a terrific feeling. Kayla says it makes her feel like "superwoman." I hope everyone gets the opportunity to feel that way.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Extinct 'Micro Lion' Is Named For Sir David Attenborough  

Microleo attenboroughi was a tiny, marsupial Australian lion that lived some 18 million years ago. Paleontologists said they named it after the famed naturalist "for his dedication and enthusiasm."

 
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Health Officials Struggle To Fight Deadly Sepsis Infections  

Although a CDC study released today found that 80 percent of cases develop outside the hospital or at a nursing home, many people still don't know about this lethal medical condition.

 
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What Does A Fish Know And Feel?  


Most of us would cringe at the thought of ripping a dog's mouth open with a hook. Why don't we cringe when we think about doing this to a fish? Our society not only considers hooking and suffocating fish to be socially acceptable, we celebrate it. Fishing shows abound on TV, almost every coastal town holds fishing competitions, and CNN routinely displays photos of fishermen with their latest and largest catch. Fishing is also commonly used as a sentimental symbol of the good life.

Perhaps we don't think twice about the ways we treat fish because we don't really know much about these animals. Biologist Jonathan Balcombe wants to change this. In his New York Times best selling book, What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins, Balcombe presents the latest scientific evidence showing that there is so much more to fish than we commonly believe. And, to emphasize that fish are individuals, Balcombe doesn't use the word "fish" as a collective plural. If there is more than one fish, he uses "fishes." I had the occasion to speak with Balcombe about his book.

Why did you decide to write a book about fish and why now?

As a scientist working on animal sentience, I was often encountering new studies of fishes showing that they have rich, interesting lives. But most of this information was buried away in scholarly journals that most folks never read. Translating science into something lay-readers find engaging is something I find challenging and enjoyable. And with fishes being the most exploited group of vertebrates on Earth, there was also a strong ethical motive to write a book of popular science about fishes.

What has your research found about what a fish knows?

Fishes are incredibly diverse, and many are clearly intelligent. Consider groupers. These large, charismatic reef-dwelling fishes will approach trusted divers for handouts or just for the pleasure of being stroked. Careful studies in the Red Sea have shown that a grouper will perform a head-shaking signal to a moray eel as an invitation to go hunting together. Groupers will also point to a prey fish hiding in the reef where the grouper cannot reach but the eel can. If the prey escapes to open water, the grouper is waiting to catch it. Both species have higher hunting success when they collaborate.

Another sharp fish is the cleaner wrasse. A 2012 study showed that these small fishes learned to solve a mental problem faster than chimpanzees, orangutans, monkeys, and a scientist's four-year-old daughter.

What about what a fish feels? Do they experience emotions?

It's pretty clear that fishes can form attachments to one another, and they can become bonded to their human guardians, too. Several readers wrote to me about the games and affection they shared with individual pet fishes, and one can watch online videos of pet fishes who swim into the hand to receive gentle caresses and other pleasurable or playful interactions.

This behavior is borne out by studies like one in which wild-caught surgeon fishes responded to stress by swimming up next to a moving wand to receive caresses, which caused their stress--measured as blood cortisol--to decline. Stationary wands were ignored by these fishes, whose stress levels remained high.

Why do you think other no other scientist has written this book before?

I'm rather dumbfounded that nobody had. With all the great things we are learning about this hugely underestimated group of animals, it has to have been one of the lowest hanging fruits for an author to pick. The moment I thought of it I knew that it was something that had to be done, and it is an incredible privilege to have written this book.

What is the most interesting feedback you have received so far from a reader?

I enjoy hearing from readers wanting to share their personal stories of fishes, and I find these the most interesting. For instance, I received a letter last week from a woman in her seventies who detailed an experience from over 40 years ago when she used to feed the fishes at the back of a pet store. She had to use a stepladder to hand-feed a tank of Oscar cichlids on the top shelf. Soon these smart fishes were jumping from the water to take morsels from her fingertips. It became a game. One day, one Oscar jumped clear of the tank and made a nosedive toward the cement floor six feet below. Miraculously, a tank holding "feeder" goldfishes protruded from a shelf at floor level and the Oscar landed in it. Megan quickly returned the cichlid to his home tank. When she returned to the shop the next morning she found the same Oscar in the goldfish tank! After this happened three days in a row, she installed a lid on the Oscar tank.

You know I focus on the intersection between animal protection and human health. Why should we care about fish? Is there any benefit for us?

There are many reasons to care about fishes. For one thing, their ocean habitats produce most of the world's oxygen. For another, fishes are a critical part of aquatic ecosystems. As they go, so go their ecosystems (and vice versa). Beyond these practical considerations are the philosophical ones that recognize fishes as having lives of value to themselves. Most of us do not need to harm fishes or their habitats to live happy healthy lives. Today, consumers have many choices in what they eat, and I hope growing numbers of humans will make compassionate, conscientious food choices that no longer support industries that cause ecological harm and animal suffering.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Unlocking the mysteries of the formation of our solar system with CHIMERA  
Register now: Thursday 22 September
A webinar sponsored by Andor  
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Magnetic bacteria target hard-to-treat tumours  
New technique transports drugs into solid cancers  
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The monk and the multiverse  
A journey into the remarkable mind of the 13th-century monk, scholar and proto-cosmologist Robert Grosseteste  
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Pluto: Not A Planet For 10 Years  


A Grown-Up's View
When I was a kid, Pluto was a planet. Of course, when I was a kid our map of the solar system was very immature. Astronomers knew of nine round planets that went around the Sun, and Pluto was one of them. But Pluto was always the oddball. It was the smallest, the coldest, the last, and the planet with the weirdest orbit. But in my youth, it was always a planet, and I liked Pluto all the more for its eccentricities.

However, in the 21st century we grew up. Astronomers put aside their smaller toy-telescopes of the past and utilized their new big-boy technology. With these grown-up telescopes, we learned that the solar system was much, much more complex. In addition to the planets, there are over 600,000 asteroids of various sizes and shapes that circle the Sun. There are objects that defy easy definition that swing wildly in elongated orbits or hang out near planets or even between planets. Then, there is the big shocker: we found over 1,000 other objects in Pluto's realm and beyond. Pluto, it turned out, was not alone, was not the last, and was not even weird. It had over 1,000 other brother-, sister-, and twin-worlds way out there. There is Eris an object nearly as large as Pluto, Makemake, Haumea, and countless other unnamed orbs plying the outer edges of our solar system. These new objects along with Pluto didn't fit into the categories we set up in our infancy.



Seeing Pluto Clearly
And there is another layer to our solar system, a region even farther from the Sun where a mysterious object named Sedna lives. Sedna takes almost 12,000 years to circle the Sun and it may be the forerunner to a myriad of future discoveries in this region of space. Perhaps a new, never-before-seen planet exists 10-1,000 times farther away than Pluto.

Ten years ago, an international group of astronomers decided Pluto's fate. Pluto was not a planet in the same way that the Earth was a planet. They did not destroy it. Pluto did not fly out of the solar system or get sucked into a black hole. It did not change at all. We changed. It was as if we went to the eye doctor and got new glasses. We see Pluto much more clearly for what it is.

I miss my childhood fascination with Pluto, but it's time to come of age. I know there will be some growing pains, but after ten years let's fully jettison our childish notions of Pluto. Pluto isn't a planet. My new boyish crush is with a true oddball - a lone wolf in the depths of space called Sedna. Let's not bemoan the loss of Pluto but instead revel in what has been gained. Check it out and you'll see that Sedna is the new Pluto!

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Joseph Totten Scientist of the Day General Joseph...  

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Joseph Totten Scientist of the Day

General Joseph Gilbert Totten, an American civil engineer, was born Aug. 23, 1788.

read more…

 
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NASA tried turning lost spacecraft STEREO-B off and on again... but it didn't work. True story  

But Deep Space Network brought her back online

NASA has managed to reestablish a connection with the STEREO-B spacecraft after contact was lost in October 2014.…

 
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Do You Read Terms Of Service Contracts? Not Many Do, Research Shows  

During an experiment, people consented to sharing their private information with the NSA, and to surrendering their first-born as payment for access to a fictitious social networking site.

 
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Beyond Slurpees: Many Japanese Mini-Marts Now Cater To Elders  

Convenience is in the eye of the generation. Increasingly, corner markets in Japan target the 27 percent of residents over 65 — offering nursing care advice and home delivery of meals and groceries.

 
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Proton pump found to regulate blood pH in stingrays  

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Researchers have discovered the same enzyme used by “boneworms” to dissolve whale carcasses, and that helps promote photosynthesis in corals, also regulates blood pH in stingrays. The study could help scientists better understand the enzyme's function in human kidneys to regulate blood and urine functions.

Image credit: Scripps Oceanography/Martin Tresguerres/Jinae Roa

 
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Tiny origami robot  

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This tiny origami robot is made of laser cut PVC and polystyrene. Once heated, the body folds around a magnet and the robot is controlled using an external magnetic field, allowing it to move around on land or in water. Once finished, the robot can dissolve to nothing in acetone (except the magnet). The body of the robot is made of PVC, with creases where it is supposed to fold, and a magnet. Heating the magnet activates the sheet to self-fold into a functional 3-D robot capable of conducting basic tasks and behaviors like swimming, delivering and carrying blocks, climbing a slope and digging. The researchers have developed three models of the origami robot: A water-degradable model, whose outer layer dissolves in water; a conductive model (aluminum coated polyester); and an acetone-degradable model, whose entire body (except the magnet) dissolves in acetone. The researchers say these origami robots could be used to access unreachable sites and show promise for use in medical applications.

Image credit: Evan Ackerman/IEEE Spectrum

 
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You vs. Future You; Or Why We're Bad At Predicting Our Own Happiness  

Researcher Dan Gilbert says that human beings are the only animals that think about the future. But we don't always do the best job at predicting what will make us happy — or even who we will be.

 
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How Big, Really, Is The Zika Outbreak In Florida?  

So far, health officials know of 37 confirmed cases of people who contracted Zika from mosquitoes in Miami. But computer models suggest the underlying outbreak in Miami is bigger — and spreading.

 
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The Zika Virus And Politicized Science  
Science today is regularly distorted to serve other ends. The religious right, for instance, claims that "creationism" should be taught in public schools as a scientific alternative to the theory of evolution. The environmentalist left, for instance, claims that science reveals genetically modified foods to be harmful to one's health. Both groups subordinate the facts of science to other considerations, whether Biblical or ideological.

The same dishonesty is shaping the response to the Zika virus.

The Zika threat is causing great concern at the Rio Olympics, with some athletes having chosen to avoid the Games altogether rather than risk infection. Florida recently reported the first locally contracted cases of Zika in the United States. And the Centers for Disease Control is advising pregnant women not to travel to certain areas of Miami--the first time the agency has ever issued such a warning for the continental U.S.

But among the measures being taken around the world to combat this danger, one is notably absent: the use of DDT.

Zika is carried by mosquitoes, and DDT has been highly effective in eliminating mosquito-borne diseases. India, for example, had 75 million malaria cases in 1953, but only 50,000 by 1961, after DDT had been introduced. In Sri Lanka close to 3 million cases of malaria occurred in 1948; 15 years later, owing to DDT, the number dropped to 17. (Source.) The National Academy of Sciences stated in 1970: "To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT.... It is estimated that in little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million deaths due to malaria."

But strong opposition to DDT arose, spurred by the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Environmentalists got DDT banned in the U.S. and, eventually, in dozens of other countries. Western nations, which fund anti-malaria campaigns throughout the world, largely refused to underwrite any efforts that employed DDT. As a result, DDT use shrank--and malaria surged.

In India the number of cases increased to 30 million in 1977. In Sri Lanka the number went to 2.5 million in 1969. (Source.) More recently, other forms of malaria control--such as installing bed-netting and reducing the presence of standing water--have lowered the incidence of the disease worldwide. But they are generally less effective than DDT. In South Africa, for example, after DDT spraying was halted in 1996, malaria infections rose from under 5,000 in 1995 to over 60,000 in 2000. At which point DDT was reintroduced--and six months later the number dropped by half. (Source.)

This hostility to DDT was not based on science. For instance, DDT was said to be carcinogenic, because of studies in which mice developed liver tumors--but only after receiving doses of DDT 100,000 times higher than what a person would typically absorb (source.) Further, the opponents of DDT ignored many facts contradicting their views--such as the fact that during the period of highest DDT use (1944-1972), deaths from liver cancer fell by 30 percent (source)--or that workers who regularly handled DDT were found to have no higher rates of cancer than the general population (source)--or that people who voluntarily ingested DDT daily for up to two years suffered no ill effects (source)--or that the amount of DDT (per kilogram of body weight) required to kill mice is greater than that of aspirin (source).

What, then, was the motive behind the anti-DDT crusade? It was based on the premise that the man-made is inherently suspect--that the natural is good and the non-natural is bad, that human "intervention" in nature is deleterious and that we have to protect nature from man, not for man. The millions of lives saved by our "non-organic" use of DDT--and the millions lost when it was not used--were disregarded. Instead, the thinning of the eggshells of the bald eagle was presented as an intolerable effect of DDT.

As explained by David Graber, a biologist with the National Park Service, environmentalists,

... value wilderness for its own sake, not for what value it confers upon mankind. . . . We are not interested in the utility of a particular species, or a free-flowing river or ecosystem to mankind. They have intrinsic value, more value--to me--than another human body or a billion of them.

True, there is evidence that some mosquitoes are developing resistance to DDT. But even where DDT's toxicity has been diminished, its repellent properties still work. When house walls are sprayed with DDT, even resistant mosquitoes are repulsed and don't enter. More important, though, one's attitude should be: "If DDT's effectiveness is lessening, let's find some way to make it work better." Instead, the operating premise seems to be: "Man-made chemicals interfere with nature, so let's find some way to prohibit them."

Man survives and prospers, not by living "in harmony" with nature, but by reshaping it--by creating houses and roads and factories out of the wilderness, by transforming nature into a tool that serves human purposes. The problem with environmentalists is not that they have an ideology, but that it is an ideology with an inverted standard of value. It is an ideology that regards the very means of human flourishing as destructive. In assessing DDT, therefore, if your overriding concern is to restructure nature in order to promote man's well-being, then you will focus on whether DDT does in fact save human lives. If, however, your overriding concern is to preserve nature against human encroachment, then you will focus on the "evil" of injecting chemicals into nature's domain. And you will be drawn to any arbitrary claim about adverse consequences of those chemicals.

My primary aim here is not to argue for the use of DDT, but to underscore the need for objectivity is dealing with such issues. We should not uncritically accept the assertions of those who are hostile to technology and industrialization. We should not accept any allegations of some product's harmfulness--say, that DDT causes Alzheimer's, or that vaccines cause autism or that fracking causes earthquakes--without being certain they rest on genuine, unpoliticized science.

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