Hong Kong protests: voices of dissent
Hong Kong (AFP) Sept 30, 2014 -
For the past two nights they have come in their tens of thousands - students, teenagers, parents, professionals and the elderly alike.
All are demanding a more democratic future for Hong Kong, a city that was once a byword for stability yet has been plunged into its worst unrest since the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997.
Student groups are spearheading a civil di ...
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France declares 'natural disaster' in flood-hit towns
Paris (AFP) Sept 30, 2014 -
France on Tuesday declared a state of natural disaster in about 60 southern towns hit by torrential downpours, which also left the Mediterranean city of Montpellier under water.
Floodwater streamed down roads and highways, engulfing cars as the Lez river burst its banks in the seaside capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region after it was lashed by record-breaking downpours.
"In a few h ...
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Ebola epidemic battering Liberian economy: minister
Geneva (AFP) Sept 30, 2014 -
Liberia's Ebola crisis is battering the economy of a nation that has spent the past decade recovering from 14 years of civil war, its minister of commerce said Tuesday.
"The road ahead is not very clear, as our entire development agenda is at risk," said Axel Addy, who was in Geneva for a UN meeting.
"All that we've achieved is at risk should this epidemic continue," he told reporters. ...
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Fears over fresh eruption cancel Japan volcano search
Tokyo (AFP) Sept 30, 2014 -
Rescue operations on a Japanese volcano were halted for the day Tuesday because of fears there could be a fresh eruption, officials said, with at least 24 bodies still on the mountain.
Helicopters were ordered to remain on the ground while troops, firefighters and police were stood down for the day, having done no real searching since the operation was suspended Monday because of rocketing l ...
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Protected areas offer glimmers of hope for wildlife
Paris (AFP) Sept 30, 2014 -
National parks and other protected areas offer hope for threatened species at a time of plunging wildlife numbers, conservationist group WWF said Tuesday, but their success has not been universal.
While the headcount of land-dwelling animals declined an estimated 39 percent overall from 1970 to 2012, that of species in protected areas dropped at the lower rate of 18 percent, the organisation ...
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California becomes first US state to ban plastic bags
Los Angeles (AFP) Sept 30, 2014 -
California became the first US state Tuesday to ban single-use plastic bags, as Governor Jerry Brown signed the measure into law.
Under the legislation, single-use bags will disappear from grocery stores and pharmacies from July 1, 2015, and then from convenience and liquor stores from July 1, 2016.
Lawmakers passed the bill earlier this month, and Brown had until the end of September to ...
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Defiant Hong Kong protesters vow to stay put
Hong Kong (AFP) Sept 30, 2014 -
Hong Kong demonstrators rejected demands to immediately end rallies that have paralysed the city's downtown, braving rainstorms to turn out in swelling numbers before a national holiday Wednesday expected to put their campaign for free elections into overdrive.
Thousands ignored the call from the city's embattled leader to end the escalating sit-in and brushed off Beijing's branding of their ...
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How dinosaur arms turned into bird wings
Santiago, Chile (SPX) Oct 01, 2014 -
Although we now appreciate that birds evolved from a branch of the dinosaur family tree, a crucial adaptation for flight has continued to puzzle evolutionary biologists. During the millions of years that elapsed, wrists went from straight to bent and hyperflexible, allowing birds to fold their wings neatly against their bodies when not flying.
How this happened has been the subject of much ...
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Dolphins are attracted to magnets
Rennes, France (SPX) Oct 01, 2014 -
Dolphins are indeed sensitive to magnetic stimuli, as they behave differently when swimming near magnetized objects. So says Dorothee Kremers and her colleagues at Ethos unit of the Universite de Rennes in France, in a study in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature. Their research, conducted in the delphinarium of Planete Sauvage in France, provides experimental behavior ...
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Study shows how chimpanzees share skills
St Andrews, UK (SPX) Oct 01, 2014 -
Evidence of new behaviour being adopted and transmitted socially from one individual to another within a wild chimpanzee community is publishing on September 30 in the open access journal PLOS Biology. This is the first instance of social learning recorded in the wild.
Scientists from University of St Andrews, University of Neuchatel, Anglia Ruskin University, and Universite du Quebec stud ...
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Plants prepackage beneficial microbes in their seeds
Washington DC (SPX) Oct 01, 2014 -
Plants have a symbiotic relationship with certain bacteria. These 'commensal' bacteria help the pants extract nutrients and defend against invaders - an important step in preventing pathogens from contaminating fruits and vegetables. Now, scientist have discovered that plants may package their commensal bacteria inside of seeds; thus ensuring that sprouting plants are colonized from the beginnin ...
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Preference for urban areas may explain spread of bumblebee in UK
Norwich, UK (SPX) Oct 01, 2014 -
The strikingly rapid spread of the Tree Bumblebee in Britain could be occurring because the bees readily live alongside humans in towns and villages - according to research from the University of East Anglia.
A new study shows that Tree Bumblebees are associated with built-up areas and that these areas form a large part of their habitat use.
These markedly different habitat and forag ...
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New cell sorting method developed by UH Manoa mechanical engineer
Manoa HI (SPX) Oct 01, 2014 -
UH Manoa College of Engineering mechanical engineer Yi Zuo has developed a new, high-throughput method for sorting cells capable of separating 10 billion bacterial cells in 30 minutes.
The finding has already proven useful for studying bacterial cells and microalgae, and could one day have direct applications for biomedical research and environmental science-basically any field in which a ...
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UN urges peaceful resolution to Hong Kong protests
United Nations, United States (AFP) Sept 30, 2014 -
UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday urged Chinese authorities and Hong Kong protesters to peacefully resolve their differences after riot police fired tear gas at pro-democracy protesters.
The UN secretary general "understands that this is a domestic matter, but urges all stakeholders to resolve any difference in a manner that is peaceful and safeguards democratic principles," said his spokesman ...
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600-year-old canoe helps explain migration from East Polynesia to New Zealand
Auckland, New Zealand (UPI) Sep 30, 2014 -
A pair of new studies, including the discovery a sophisticated 600-year-old canoe in New Zealand, are finally helping to explain how people of East Polynesia made their way to New Zealand during the 13th century.
Scientists know Polynesian seafarers made their way across vast swaths of rough Pacific seas, colonizing a variety of faraway islands - Samoa to the west, New Zealand to the s ...
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Genetic Operating System Facilitated Evolution of Bilateral Animals
San Diego CA (SPX) Oct 01, 2014 -
The evolution of worms, insects, vertebrates and other "bilateral" animals-those with distinct left and right sides-from less complex creatures like jellyfish and sea anemones with "radial" symmetry may have been facilitated by the emergence of a completely new "operating system" for controlling genetic instructions in the cell.
That's the hypothesis of molecular biologists at UC San Diego ...
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Shape up quickly - applies to fish too
Gothenburg, Sweden (SPX) Oct 01, 2014 -
Fish can live in almost any aquatic environment on Earth, but when the climate changes and temperatures go up many species are pushed to the limit. The amount of time needed to adjust to new conditions could prove critical for how different species cope in the future, reveals a new study from researchers at the University of Gothenburg, published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Roya ...
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New mechanism reveals how molecules become trapped in ice
Washington DC (SPX) Oct 01, 2014 -
Ice is ubiquitous in nature-found within terrestrial and astrophysical environments alike-and contains many atoms and molecules trapped inside it. For example, ice beneath the world's oceans hosts a vast reservoir of greenhouse gases, which if released would have a profound effect on climate change.
On the earth's surface, seasonal ice and permafrost-covered regions represent a vast reserv ...
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Nitrogen fingerprint in biomolecules could be from early sun
San Diego CA (SPX) Oct 01, 2014 -
Chemical fingerprints of the element nitrogen vary by extremes in materials from the molecules of life to the solar wind to interstellar dust. Ideas for how this great variety came about have included alien molecules shuttled in by icy comets from beyond our solar system and complex chemical scenarios.
New experiments using a powerful source of ultraviolet light have shown that no extra-so ...
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Instant speciation, biodiversity, and the root of our existence
Washington DC (SPX) Oct 01, 2014 -
What do seedless watermelon, salmon, and strawberries all have in common? Unlike most eukaryotic multicellular organisms that have two sets of chromosomes and are diploid, these organisms are all polyploid, meaning they have three or more sets of chromosomes-seedless watermelon and salmon have 3 and 4 sets of chromosomes, respectively, and strawberries have 10! While this might seem surprising, ...
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