Viruses take down massive algal blooms, with big implications for climate
Rehovet, Israel (SPX) Aug 25, 2014 -
Algae might seem easy to ignore, but they are the ultimate source of all organic matter that marine animals depend upon. Humans are increasingly dependent on algae, too, to suck up climate-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sink it to the bottom of the ocean.
Now, by using a combination of satellite imagery and laboratory experiments, researchers have evidence showing that viru ...
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Syria 'ready to cooperate' over jihadists accused of atrocities
Khanaqin, Iraq (AFP) Aug 25, 2014 -
The UN Monday accused jihadists in Iraq of waging a campaign of "ethnic and religious cleansing", as Syria said it was ready to work with the global community against "terrorism".
The accusation by UN human rights chief Navi Pillay came as Kurdish peshmerga forces pushed back Islamic State (IS) jihadists northeast of Baghdad a day after the militants overran a key military airport in Syria. ...
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Iraqi Kurds advance on jihadist militants
Kirkuk, Iraq (AFP) Aug 25, 2014 -
Iraqi Kurdish forces backed by air power retook three villages from jihadist militants northeast of Baghdad on Monday and also held off two assaults elsewhere, officials said.
Militants led by the Islamic State (IS) group overran large chunks of Iraq in a lightning June offensive that swept security forces aside.
But Iraqi federal forces and the autonomous Kurdish region's peshmerga figh ...
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Somali Islamists 'flee' African troop advance
Mogadishu (AFP) Aug 25, 2014 -
Somali and African Union forces said they seized control Monday of a strategic town from Shebab Islamist fighters, in the latest military advance against the extremists.
Hundreds of Somali and Ethiopian troops with the AU force in Somalia (AMISOM) entered the town of Tiyeglow in the southwestern Bakool region, some 240 kilometres (150 miles) north of Mogadishu, with the Islamists fleeing ahe ...
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Qatar aims to prove its role against radical Islam
Dubai (AFP) Aug 25, 2014 -
Qatar, which mediated the release of a US hostage held by Al-Qaeda in Syria, seeks to prove its role in confronting the Islamist radicals it has been accused of supporting, experts say.
The Qatari foreign ministry, in a statement, said the tiny gas-rich nation had "succeeded in releasing American journalist Peter Theo Curtis," after he spent 22 months in captivity.
Doha "exerted relentle ...
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Libya gets new chief of staff to tackle militias threat
Benghazi, Libya (AFP) Aug 25, 2014 -
Parliament in Libya has named a new military chief of staff tasked with tackling armed militias that control vast areas of the violence-plagued North African nation.
"Colonel Abdel Razzak Nadhuri was chosen by 88 out of 124 MPs present and promoted to the rank of general" on Sunday, parliament spokesman Mohammed Toumi told AFP.
Nadhuri replaces General Abdessalam Jadallah al-Abidi, who w ...
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New EIAST Primary Sat Fab Facilities Ready Soon
Dubai, UAE (SPX) Aug 25, 2014 -
The Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) announced that works entailing the construction of its primary facility for the manufacture of satellites were on schedule and expected to be completed in the next few months.
The facility comprises a clean room for the manufacture of satellites, an electrical laboratory, as well as a mechanical lab.
With a total ar ...
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South Korea launches fourth of 20 new frigates
Seoul (UPI) Aug 25, 2014 -
A fourth guided missile frigate for the South Korean Navy has been launched by STX Offshore & Shipbuilding, the Ministry of National Defense announced.
The ship, "Gangwon Ham," is one of 20 new frigates planned for the Navy by the mid-2020s and will be delivered to the service next year.
Gangwon Ham displaces 2,300-tons and 374 feet in length. It carries 120 sailors, has a maximu ...
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Kiev says captured 10 Russian paratroopers in east Ukraine
Kiev (AFP) Aug 25, 2014 -
Ukraine's security service on Monday said its military in the war-torn east has captured 10 Russian paratroopers on Ukrainian soil and was questioning them as part of a criminal probe.
Soldiers from the 331st regiment of 98th airborne division based in central Russia were taken near the Ukrainian village of Dzerkalne, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) southeast of the rebel hub Donetsk, it said ...
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Kurdish rebels abduct 3 Chinese in southeast Turkey: report
Istanbul (AFP) Aug 25, 2014 -
Kurdish militants abducted three Chinese workers in Turkey's southeast after the rebels attacked the thermal energy plant where they work, state media said Monday.
Militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) kidnapped the Chinese workers late Sunday while they were doing grocery shopping near the Iraiq border, the Anatolia news agency said.
The assailants attacked the plant with ...
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Obama has taken no decision on Syria airstrikes: White House
Washington (AFP) Aug 25, 2014 -
The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama had so far made no decision on whether to launch air strikes on Islamic State militants in Syria.
"The president has not made any decision to conduct military action in Syria," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, amid rising expectations of US action following American attacks against the jihadist group in Iraq.
Earnest address ...
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Chinese media warn US over warplane interception
Beijing (AFP) Aug 25, 2014 -
China's state-run media warned Washington on Monday that Beijing could treat its surveillance flights as an "act of hostility", after accusations a Chinese fighter jet flew dangerously close to a US military aircraft.
US Rear Admiral John Kirby said Friday the armed Chinese warplane came close to the American P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft on three occasions, at times less than 30 feet ( ...
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Europe sees five possible sites for comet landing
Paris (AFP) Aug 25, 2014 -
The European Space Agency (ESA) on Monday said it had drawn up a shortlist of five possible sites for carrying out the first-ever landing on a comet.
Astronomers have been scrutinising high-definition photos sent back by the Rosetta spacecraft, which rendezvoused with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on August 6 after a 10-year chase through the Solar System.
In mid-November, ESA intends ...
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Pitt engineer turns metal into glass
Pittsburgh PA (SPX) Aug 21, 2014 -
Materials scientists have long sought to form glass from pure, monoatomic metals. Scott X. Mao and colleagues did it. Their paper, "Formation of Monoatomic Metallic Glasses Through Ultrafast Liquid Quenching," was recently published online in Nature, a leading science journal.
Mao, William, Kepler Whiteford Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Pitt ...
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Artificial Cells Act Like the Real Thing
Rehovot, Israel (SPX) Aug 21, 2014 -
Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery, but mimicking the intricate networks and dynamic interactions that are inherent to living cells is difficult to achieve outside the cell. Now, as published in Science, Weizmann Institute scientists have created an artificial, network-like cell system that is capable of reproducing the dynamic behavior of protein synthesis.
This achiev ...
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NASA Scientists Watching, Studying Arctic Changes This Summer
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 25, 2014 -
As we near the final month of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, NASA scientists are watching the annual seasonal melting of the Arctic sea ice cover. The floating, frozen cap that stretches across the Arctic Ocean shrinks throughout summer until beginning to regrow, typically around mid-September.
As of Aug. 19, Arctic sea ice covered about 2.31 million square miles. While this is on trac ...
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Ice sheet highs, lows and loss
Paris (ESA) Aug 25, 2014 -
Measurements from ESA's CryoSat mission have been used to map the height of the huge ice sheets that blanket Greenland and Antarctica and show how they are changing. New results reveal combined ice volume loss at an unprecedented rate of 500 cubic kilometres a year.
The research was carried out by Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research and the res ...
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Japan mulls building its own fighter jets: report
Tokyo (AFP) Aug 21, 2014 -
Japan is considering building its own fighter jets after years of playing second fiddle in a US construction partnership, a report said Thursday, in a move likely to stoke fears of its military resurgence among Asian neighbours.
Japan's attempt in the 1980s to build its first purely domestic fighters since World War II faced US resistance and resulted in joint US-Japan development and produc ...
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How much do climate patterns influence predictability across the United States?
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 21, 2014 -
In our post last month, we introduced and defined several climate patterns other than ENSO that impact United States winter climate. But how useful are these climate patterns in predicting U.S. temperature and precipitation in winter and other seasons? How do they stack up against ENSO, for example?
b>Long-term Trends br> /b>
For all seasons combined, upward temperature trends have been ...
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New N. Korean launch site near completion: think-tank
Seoul (AFP) Aug 22, 2014 -
North Korea will be able to test longer-range rockets at its new launch site before the end of this year, a US think-tank has said.
A major construction programme has been under way at the North's Sohae Satellite Launching Station since mid-2013, focused on upgrading facilities to handle larger, longer-range rockets with heavier payloads.
Satellite images taken this month indicate that s ...
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On the edge of graphene
Teddington, UK (SPX) Aug 21, 2014 -
Researchers at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) have discovered that the conductivity at the edges of graphene devices is different to that of the central material.
Local scanning electrical techniques were used to examine the local nanoscale electronic properties of epitaxial graphene, in particular the differences between the edges and central parts of graphene Hall bar devices. Th ...
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NMR Using Earth's Magnetic Field
Berkeley CA (SPX) Aug 21, 2014 -
Earth's magnetic field, a familiar directional indicator over long distances, is routinely probed in applications ranging from geology to archaeology. Now it has provided the basis for a technique which might, one day, be used to characterize the chemical composition of fluid mixtures in their native environments.
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley Nat ...
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Russia's First Exoskeleton to Help Physically Impaired
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Aug 19, 2014 -
A team of Russian exoskeleton designers said Monday they were looking for disabled patients who would agree to volunteer for human tests in the country's unique ExoAtlet Project, according to Izvestia newspaper.
"Preclinical trials are scheduled for autumn: we will look at how comfortable it is for different people to move around in an exoskeleton, and use the feedback to tune the control ...
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AFSOUTH strengthens space ties with partner nations
Davis-Monthan AFB AZ (SPX) Aug 21, 2014 -
Three officers from the Dominican Republic, Peruvian and Brazilian militaries partnered with active-duty and guard Airmen at Davis-Monthan for a rare opportunity to work collectively on the space component of PANAMAX 2014.
For a third year, partner nation participants took part in the space element of PANAMAX, an annual U.S. Southern Command sponsored exercise, which focuses on ensuring th ...
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Astrotech Space Operations now a Lockheed Martin subsidiary
Bethesda, Md. (UPI) Aug 25, 2014 -
Lockheed Martin has announced the completion of its acquisition of Astrotech Space Operations, previously part of Astrotech Corporation.
The financial terms of the transaction were described by Lockheed Martin as "not material" to it. Astrotech, however, said the transaction was worth $61 million and was an important step in the company's strategic evolution towards maximizing the value ...
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