Welcome to another edition of “Hawaii Science Digest”–a Hawaii Island-based blog focusing on science, technology, medicine, health, the environment, cyber security, and artificial intelligence (AI). Views expressed in this science news update are those of the reporters and correspondents. Today’s post cites articles published by https://phys.org (Spotlight Science News). Here are the details:
Accessed on 11 January 2019, 0600 UTC.
Source: https://phys.org
Please click link or scroll down to read your selections.
Spotlight Science News
Birth of a black hole or neutron star captured for first time
A Northwestern University-led international team is getting closer to understanding the mysteriously bright object that burst in the northern sky this summer.
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Astronomers find signatures of a ‘messy’ star that made its companion go supernova
Many stars explode as luminous supernovae when, swollen with age, they run out of fuel for nuclear fusion. But some stars can go supernova simply because they have a close and pesky companion star that, one day, perturbs …
Oceans are warming even faster than previously thought
Heat trapped by greenhouse gases is raising ocean temperatures faster than previously thought, concludes an analysis of four recent ocean heating observations. The results provide further evidence that earlier claims of a …
A new algorithm for solving archaeological puzzles
A team of researchers at Technion and the University of Haifa have developed a new computer vision approach for solving archaeological puzzles. In their paper, pre-published on arXiv, they introduce a general algorithm that …
A new approach for software fault prediction using feature selection
Researchers at Taif University, Birzeit University and RMIT University have developed a new approach for software fault prediction (SFP), which addresses some of the limitations of existing machine learning SFP techniques. …
A new approach to address food security issues after natural disasters
Researchers at Colorado State University (CSU) have developed an approximate dynamic programming approach to improve the food security of communities affected by natural disasters. Their work exploring methods to aid community …
Magnetar mysteries in our galaxy and beyond
In a new Caltech-led study, researchers from campus and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have analyzed pulses of radio waves coming from a magnetar—a rotating, dense, dead star with a strong magnetic field—that is …
Unusual supernova opens a rare window on the collapse of a star
An unusual supernova studied by multiple telescopes, including the SOAR telescope and other telescopes at the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) and NSF’s Kitt Peak National …
Forget pills and pizza. These drones are landing, drilling holes, and taking off again
How to dig a hole with two drone and a parachute. That’s a headline painfully hard to skip over and we did not. IEEE Spectrum is reporting on the portable digging system that is proving up to the many-faceted task: keeping …
New technique more precisely determines the ages of stars
How old are each of the stars in our roughly 13-billion-year-old galaxy? A new technique for understanding the star-forming history of the Milky Way in unprecedented detail makes it possible to determine the ages of stars …
More stable light comes from intentionally ‘squashed’ quantum dots
Intentionally “squashing” colloidal quantum dots during chemical synthesis creates dots capable of stable, “blink-free” light emission that is fully comparable with the light produced by dots made with more complex processes. …
Is that really a neglected disease?
Dangerous infectious diseases such as AIDS/HIV, Zika, Ebola and influenza frequently make headlines, and it seems as if there is no end of media attention and research interest focused on them. Conversely, diseases like leishmaniasis, …
Spintronics ‘miracle material’ put to the test
When German mineralogist Gustav Rose stood on the slopes of Russia’s Ural Mountains in 1839 and picked up a piece of a previously undiscovered mineral, he had never heard of transistors or diodes or had any concept of how …
Solving the ancient mysteries of Easter Island
The ancient people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) built their famous ahu monuments near coastal freshwater sources, according to a team of researchers including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New …
Intelligent males may make female birds swoon: study
Male birds are often the ones with the most vibrant feathers, or the most elaborate songs, but researchers said Thursday that what female birds could really appreciate is a male who shows his intelligence.
Nanometer-sized tubes made from simple benzene molecules
For the first time, researchers used benzene, a common hydrocarbon, to create a novel kind of molecular nanotube, which could lead to new nanocarbon-based semiconductor applications.
Cartilage could be key to safe ‘structural batteries’
Your knees and your smartphone battery have some surprisingly similar needs, a University of Michigan professor has discovered, and that new insight has led to a “structural battery” prototype that incorporates a cartilage-like …
Termites mitigate effects of drought in tropical rainforests
A major new study, led jointly by the University of Liverpool and the Natural History Museum, has discovered that termites mitigate against the effects of drought in tropical rain forests.
Mothers use sex pheromones to veil eggs, preventing cannibalism
Species that lay eggs but don’t actively keep watch over them often protect their precious eggs from predators by laying them in communal groups or by fortifying them with toxins. However, protecting these eggs from being …
Laser triggers electrical activity in thunderstorm for the first time
A team of European scientists has deliberately triggered electrical activity in thunderclouds for the first time, according to a new paper in the latest issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal. …
Giant pattern discovered in the clouds of planet Venus
A Japanese research group has identified a giant streak structure among the clouds covering planet Venus based on observation from the spacecraft Akatsuki. The team also revealed the origins of this structure using large-scale …
2-D materials may enable electric vehicles to get 500 miles on a single charge
Lithium-air batteries are poised to become the next revolutionary replacement for currently used lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles, cell phones and computers.
New role for brain’s support cells in controlling circadian rhythms
Astrocytes, ‘caretaker’ cells that surround and support neurons in the brain, play a much more important role in circadian rhythms, the body’s 24-hour internal clock, than previously understood.
Men and women remember pain differently
Scientists increasingly believe that one of the driving forces in chronic pain—the number one health problem in both prevalence and burden—appears to be the memory of earlier pain. Research published today/this week in …
Study finds a link between lowered levels of HDAC3 and infertility in endometriosis patients
A team of researchers from the U.S. and South Korea has found a link between low levels of HDAC3 and infertility in endometriosis patients. In their paper published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the group …
Bizarre ‘bristle-jaw’ creatures finally placed on tree of life
Chaetognaths, whose name means “bristle-jaw,” can be found all over world, swimming in brackish estuaries, tropical seas and above the deep dark ocean floor. Also known as arrow worms, the creatures have been around since …
Giving Cas9 an ‘on’ switch for better control of CRISPR gene editing
CRISPR-Cas9 is a revolutionary tool in part because of its versatility: created by bacteria to chew up viruses, it works equally well in human cells to do all sorts of genetic tricks, including cutting and pasting DNA, making …
Researchers identify drug against the formation of metastasis
The most deadly aspect of breast cancer is metastasis, cancer cells spreading throughout the body. Researchers at the University and the University Hospital of Basel have now discovered a substance that suppresses the formation …
What 100,000 star factories in 74 galaxies reveal about star formation
Galaxies come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Some of the most significant differences among galaxies, however, relate to where and how they form new stars. Compelling research to explain these differences has been …
For these birds, climate change spells a rise in fatal conflicts
Researchers have found yet another way in which climate change has been detrimental to migrating birds. As European winters have become warmer, pied flycatchers traveling from Africa over long distances to reach breeding …
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