Science & TechnologyS


Radar

Shark attacks: Why so unpredictable?

Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News
Wed, 19 Feb 2014 12:47 UTC
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© FALLOWS C, GALLAGHER AJ, HAMMERSCHLAG N/WIKIMEDIA COMMONSA great white shark feasts on a whale.
A number of factors are affecting how many shark attacks and fatalities occur each year, and most of them have little to do with sharks and more to do with humans, according to shark experts.

The reasons help to explain why shark attack statistics fluctuate so much from year to year. A report released by the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File earlier this week, for example, found that there were 10 human fatalities worldwide due to shark attacks, which is higher than the 10-year average from 2003-2012.

The U.S., on the other hand, only had one fatality- in Hawaii- and 47 shark attacks nationwide. This was lower than the 2012 total of 54.
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Info

How dogs know what you're feeling

Virginia Morell
ScienceNow
Thu, 20 Feb 2014 12:46 UTC
Dogs on Scanner
© Borbala FerenczySit. Stay. Scan. Dogs' brain scans reveal vocal areas similar to those in human brains.
When you hear a friend's voice, you immediately picture her, even if you can't see her. And from the tone of her speech, you quickly gauge if she's happy or sad. You can do all of this because your human brain has a "voice area." Now, scientists using brain scanners and a crew of eager dogs have discovered that dog brains, too, have dedicated voice areas. The finding helps explain how canines can be so attuned to their owners' feelings.

"It's absolutely brilliant, groundbreaking research," says Pascal Belin, a neuroscientist at the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom, who was part of the team that identified the voice areas in the human brain in 2000. "They've made the first comparative study using nonhuman primates of the cerebral processing of voices, and they've done it with a noninvasive technique by training dogs to lie in a scanner."

The scientists behind the discovery had previously shown that humans can readily distinguish between dogs' happy and sad barks. "Dogs and humans share a similar social environment," says Attila Andics, a neuroscientist in a research group at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest and the lead author of the new study. "So we wondered if dogs also get some social information from human voices."
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Smoking

Secondhand Smoke, Third-Rate Science

Michael D.Shaw
Health News Digest
Fri, 13 Dec 2013 12:03 UTC
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In a perfect world, it wouldn't be necessary for me to begin this article by affirming that I am not a supporter of smoking, nor am I a paid shill of the tobacco industry. But in our real world--in which a goodly amount of scientific research grant money is awarded on the basis of sensationalized fearmongering results--those who question the validity of such results are often attacked.

"Kill the messenger" is hardly a new phenomenon, having been recorded as early as 442 BC in the play Antigone by Sophocles.

That said, let's proceed to the matter at hand: The overblown (sorry, couldn't resist) dangers of secondhand smoke. We'll start off with the latest findings, as presented at the June, 2013 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Among never smokers, any passive smoking exposure and most passive smoking categories did not significantly increase lung cancer risk, compared to no passive exposure; however, passive exposure as an adult at home for 30 or more years was associated with increased risk, of borderline significance.

Comment: Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer
Smokers' lungs used in half of transplants: Improves Survival Rate!
Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer (According to WHO/CDC Data)
Air pollution causes lung cancer in non-smokers (erm, can't it cause it in smokers too then?)
Government Suppresses Major Public Health Report
Air pollution leading cause of cancer, World Health Organisation warns
5 Health Benefits of Smoking
'World No Tobacco Day'? Let's All Light Up!

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Battery

Google Chrome extension allows the user to see when e-mails are viewed by the recipient - without their knowledge.

Elizabeth Kreft
The Blaze
Thu, 13 Feb 2014 10:25 UTC
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© Via Streak.comThe Streak website boasts the Gmail tracking capability.
Forget the NSA: Google has enabled a level of internet spying, and it's aimed at your e-mail inbox.

A Google Chrome extension dubbed Streak allows the user to see when e-mails are viewed by the recipient - without their knowledge.

In other words, when installed by someone who sends you an eamil, Streak allows that person to see that you have opened their email without responding.

"Streak email tracking shows the status of all your tracked emails right in your inbox. You'll see a green or gray 'eye' icon right next to any email in any inbox list telling you whether the email is being read or not," reads the Streak website.
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Take 2

How pesticide companies silence scientific dissent

Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
Mon, 17 Feb 2014 17:42 UTC
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© zengardner.com
There are plenty of indications suggesting that the evidence-based paradigm across sciences is built on quicksand, having been largely bought and paid for by many major multinational corporations.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the chemical industry, where pesticide companies posing as "biotechnology" firms specializing in genetics have peddled their wares based on seriously flawed science from the very beginning.

Increasing numbers of scientists are now speaking out in objection to the rampant scientific misconduct muddling the field. Public mistrust in scientists and the corporations that pay them is also on the rise - and rightfully so. Conflicts of interest have become the norm within virtually all fields of science, which creates a completely unworkable situation in the long run.

Our society is largely built on the idea that science can help us make good, solid decisions. But now we're facing a world so rife with problems caused by the very sciences that were supposed to keep us healthy, safe, and productive, it's quite clear that we're heading toward more than one proverbial brick wall.

In a sense, the fundamental role of science itself has been hijacked for selfish gain. Looking back, you can now see that the preferred business model of an industry was created first, followed by "scientific evidence" that supports the established business model.

The injection of industry employees into every conceivable branch of government has led to insanely detrimental health and environmental policies, and the generally accepted idea that scientific integrity is somehow an unassailable fact has allowed the scam to continue for as long as it has. Good old fashioned gangster tactics have also kept the spiel going.

Comment: The Corruption of Science in America

While reading the article above, it is made clear that pesticide companies make a point to discredit/silence scientific research with personal attacks and character assassination, completely ignoring the documented scientific research, publications and data regarding the serious negative effects of pesticides/herbicides. As Dr. Mercola clearly states: "Researchers like Séralini and Hayes are not welcome in a system like this, as the funders of research are really not interested in real science. Their ultimate aim is to use science to further their own agenda, which is to sell patented seeds and chemicals. Studies that cast doubt on the soundness of their business model are simply buried and ignored."

GMO Researchers Attacked, Evidence Denied, and a Population at Risk
On September 2, 2009, the prestigious journal Nature acknowledged that the regular attacks on biotech researchers are orchestrated by a "large block of scientists who denigrate research by other legitimate scientists in a knee-jerk, partisan, emotional way that is not helpful in advancing knowledge and is outside the ideals of scientific inquiry."

These attacks have all but stopped independent research into the health and environmental side-effects of GMOs. According to University of California at Berkeley professor Ignacio Chapela, there is a de facto ban on scientists "asking certain questions and finding certain results." He says, "It's very hard for us to publish in this field. People are scared."


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Cassiopaea

Famous star explosion lit by ultrafast Mach 1,000 shock wave

Denise Chow
LiveScience
Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:26 UTC
Supernova
© X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/K. Eriksen et al.; Optical: DSSThis photograph of the Tycho supernova remnant was taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Low-energy X-rays (red) in the image show expanding debris from the supernova explosion and high energy X-rays (blue) show the blast wave, a shell of extremely energetic electrons.
Astronomers studying the remnants of a well-known stellar explosion discovered a blisteringly fast shock wave that is rushing inward at 1,000 times the speed of sound, lighting up what remains of the powerful cosmic explosion.

When a star reaches the end of its life, it explodes in a supernova that can briefly outshine entire galaxies. Typically, these blasts fade away after a few weeks or months, but the material left behind from these violent explosions can continue to glow for hundreds or thousands of years. Scientists have now observed a formidable inward-racing shock wave that keeps one of these stellar corpses glowing.

This so-called reverse shock wave is traveling at Mach 1,000, or a thousand times the speed of sound, heating the remains of the famous supernova SN 1572 and causing it to emit X-ray light, the researchers said.

"We wouldn't be able to study ancient supernova remnants without a reverse shock to light them up," study leader Hiroya Yamaguchi, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., said in a statement.
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Attention

U.S. scientists claim nuclear fusion breakthrough

Ian Sample
The Guardian
Wed, 12 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
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© EPA/CorbisThe sun is powered by nuclear fusion, which smashes hydrogen nuclei together to make helium.
US researchers have achieved a world first in an ambitious experiment that aims to recreate the conditions at the heart of the sun and pave the way for nuclear fusion reactors.

The scientists generated more energy from fusion reactions than they put into the nuclear fuel, in a small but crucial step along the road to harnessing fusion power. The ultimate goal - to produce more energy than the whole experiment consumes - remains a long way off, but the feat has nonetheless raised hopes that after decades of setbacks, firm progress is finally being made.

Fusion energy has the potential to become a radical alternative power source, with zero carbon emissions during operation and minimal waste, but the technical difficulties in demonstrating fusion in the lab have so far proved overwhelming. While existing nuclear reactors generate energy by splitting atoms into lighter particles, fusion reactors combine light atomic nuclei into heavier particles.

In their experiments, researchers at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California use a bank of 192 powerful lasers to crush a minuscule amount of fuel so hard and fast that it becomes hotter than the sun.
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Cassiopaea

Runaway pulsar produces longest jet trail ever observed

Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today
Tue, 18 Feb 2014 22:43 UTC
Pulsar
© X-ray: NASA/CXC/ISDC/L.Pavan et al, Radio: CSIRO/ATNF/ATCA Optical: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSFAn extraordinary jet trailing behind a runaway pulsar is seen in this composite image.
One of the fastest-moving pulsars ever observed is spewing out a record-breaking jet of high-energy particles that stretches 37 light years in length - the longest object in the Milky Way galaxy.

"We've never seen an object that moves this fast and also produces a jet," said Lucia Pavan of the University of Geneva in Switzerland and lead author of a paper analyzing the object. "By comparison, this jet is almost 10 times longer than the distance between the sun and our nearest star."

The pulsar, a type of neutron star, is has the official moniker of IGR J11014-6103, but is also known as the "Lighthouse nebula." Astronomers say the pulsar's corkscrew-like trajectory can likely be traced back to its birth in the collapse and subsequent explosion of a massive star. The curly-cue pattern in the trail suggests the pulsar is wobbling like a spinning top.

The team says that their findings suggest that "jets are common to rotation-powered pulsars, and demonstrate that supernovae can impart high kick velocities to misaligned spinning neutron stars, possibly through distinct, exotic, core-collapse mechanisms."
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Info

Elephants exhibit compassion for each other

Brett Smith
RedOrbit
Tue, 18 Feb 2014 12:39 UTC
Elephants
© Nazzu/Shutterstock
People often reflexively put their arm around someone else in distress and a new study from researchers at Emory University in the journal PeerJ has found that elephants also console each other in times of need.

Study author Joshua Plotnik, a graduate student at Emory, said the physical touches and vocalizations he and his co-author recorded are the first bits of evidence that show elephants try to comfort teach other.

"For centuries, people have observed that elephants seem to be highly intelligent and empathic animals, but as scientists we need to actually test it," he said.

In addition to humans, this type of consolation has only been seen in great apes, canines and some types of birds.

"With their strong social bonds, it's not surprising that elephants show concern for others," said study co-author Frans de Waal, an Emory professor of psychology. "This study demonstrates that elephants get distressed when they see others in distress, reaching out to calm them down, not unlike the way chimpanzees or humans embrace someone who is upset."

In the study, the researchers focused on a group of 26 captive Asian elephants spread over about 30 acres at an elephant preserve in northern Thailand. For almost a year, the scientists viewed and recorded situations when an elephant presented a stress reaction, and the reactions from other nearby elephants. The primary stress responses originated from either unobservable or noticeable stimuli, such as a dangerous animal rustling in the grass or the presence of a rival elephant.
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Wolf

How wolves change rivers

Sustainable Man
Youtube
Thu, 13 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
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When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.
- John Muir
When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable "trophic cascade" occurred. What is a trophic cascade and how exactly do wolves change rivers? George Monbiot explains in this movie remix.
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