Current Science News and Events
The following is a collection of the latest news available on the world wide web. These links will lead you to sites outside of Visionlearning.
Current feeds as of 6/19/13 04:00am EST include the following.
BBC Science
Saturn probe to acquire Earth image
The Cassini probe in orbit around Saturn is going to picture the ringed planet in a special photo that also includes a distant Earth.
'Hoff' crab's oceanic 'road trip'
A hairy crab named after US actor David Hasselhoff hitched a ride on an ocean "super-highway" to colonise deep sea vents in the Atlantic tens of millions of years ago.
Applause is a 'social contagion'
The quality of a performance does not drive the amount of applause an audience gives, a study suggests.
Toxic substance in Fukushima water
High levels of a toxic radioactive isotope, strontium-90, have been found in groundwater at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, its operator says.
Echoes reveal the shape of a room
The geometric shape of a room can be mapped using the echoes from a sound recorded by four microphones placed inside a room, research finds.
Wet summers down to warmer Atlantic
Meteorologists and scientists meeting at the Met Office say the UK's damp summers could be caused by a warmer Atlantic Ocean.
Science Daily News
Finding all asteroid threats to human populations: NASA announces asteroid grand challenge
NASA has announced a Grand Challenge focused on finding all asteroid threats to human populations and knowing what to do about them. The challenge is a large-scale effort that will use multi-disciplinary collaborations and a variety of partnerships with other government agencies, international partners, industry, academia, and citizen scientists. It complements NASA's recently announced mission to redirect an asteroid and send humans to study it.
Cassini probe to take photo of Earth from deep space
NASA's Cassini spacecraft, now exploring Saturn, will take a picture of our home planet from a distance of hundreds of millions of miles on July 19. NASA is inviting the public to help acknowledge the historic interplanetary portrait as it is being taken.
Academics earn street cred with TED Talks but no points from peers
TED Talks, the most popular conference and events website in the world with over 1 billion informational videos viewed, provides academics with increased popular exposure but does nothing to boost citations of their work by peers, new research has found.
Three-dimensional printing can now be used to print lithium-ion microbatteries the size of a grain of sand. The printed microbatteries could supply electricity to tiny devices in fields from medicine to communications, including many that have lingered on lab benches for lack of a battery small enough to fit the device, yet provide enough stored energy to power them.
Personality test finds some mouse lemurs shy, others bold
In the last 10 years the study of animal personality has gained ground with behavioral ecologists. Researchers have now found distinct personalities in the grey mouse lemur, the tiny, saucer-eyed primate native to the African island of Madagascar.
Science Magazine News Summaries
The Max Planck Society selected a new president, chemist Martin Stratmann. And Science interviews David Altshuler of the Broad Institute, who is leading the planning to create a global alliance of research, health care, and patient advocacy organizations to help researchers securely share genome sequences and clinical information.
[News of the Week] Random Sample
A student filmmaker won an award from the Sloan Foundation for his science-based screenplay about fatal insomnia.
[News & Analysis] Computer Science: Network Science at Center of Surveillance Dispute
Last week's disclosures that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) is collecting cell phone records and Internet data came as no surprise to experts in network analysis, who say that the type of data crunching NSA is engaged in—identifying social groups from connections among people—is business as usual at several private companies.
Author: Adrian Cho
[News & Analysis] Social Science: Bold Plan, Uncertain Future for Gun Violence Research
A National Academies report has recommended more than a dozen topics for analysis in gun violence research, but U.S. funding remains in doubt.
Author: John Bohannon
[News & Analysis] U.S. Stem Education: Educators, Lawmakers Question Proposed Reorganization
President Barack Obama's plan to reorganize U.S. STEM education is drawing congressional opposition.
Author: Jeffrey Mervis
Science Magazine This Week in Science
The human brain, although overall bilaterally symmetric, shows asymmetry in certain functions such as speech. Bishop (p. 1302) reviews what is known about lateralization of the brain and acquisition of … [Read more]
Optical lattices loaded with cold atoms have been used successfully as quantum simulators of condensed matter systems; however, in the case of fermionic quantum magnetism, achieving low enough temperatures has … [Read more]
Plate tectonics drive the continuous exchange of material between Earth's crust and mantle. Subduction adds crustal materials to the mantle, which influence the composition of erupted lavas at mid-ocean ridges. … [Read more]
The formation of cirrus clouds begins with the production of ice nuclei, on which water vapor then condenses. Cziczo et al. (p. 1320, published online 9 May) determined the kinds … [Read more]
The Moon has been traditionally considered bone-dry, but in recent years a number of studies have shown that during mantle melting, the lunar mantle had as much water as Earth's … [Read more]
