MUOS-5 Transfer Maneuver Temporarily Halted, Parked In Safe Orbit
San Diego NNS CA (SPX) Jul 12, 2016 -
The fifth Mobile User Objective System satellite, which successfully launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 on June 24, was projected to reach its geosynchronous orbit and enter its test location 22,000 miles above Hawaii by July 3.
The satellite experienced an anomaly that required the transfer maneuver to be temporarily halted.
The Navy's Program Executive Office for Spac ...
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Beetle named Xi is a pest, say China censors
Beijing (AFP) July 12, 2016 -
Chinese censors have stepped in to crush underfoot talk of a newfound beetle species named after President Xi Jinping, reports said Tuesday - to the dismay of its loyal discoverer.
The Rhyzodiastes (Temoana) xii was identified in China's southern island province of Hainan by Cheng-Bin Wang, a Chinese national affiliated with the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague.
In peer-reviewe ...
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Natural catastrophe losses up sharply in first half 2016: Munich Re
Frankfurt (AFP) July 12, 2016 -
Financial losses from natural catastrophes surged strongly in the first six months of this year, driven by powerful earthquakes in Japan and Ecuador, storms in Europe and the US, and forest fires in Canada, German reinsurer Munich Re said on Tuesday.
"Losses caused by natural catastrophes in the first half of 2016 were significantly higher than the corresponding figures for the previous yea ...
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Hong Kong tycoon Kwok freed on bail
Hong Kong (AFP) July 12, 2016 -
Hong Kong property tycoon Thomas Kwok was granted bail Tuesday, clearing the path to appeal his graft conviction over a high-profile cash for favours scandal.
Kwok was jailed in 2014 over a series of payments totaling HK$8.5 million (US$1.1 million) to the city's former deputy leader Rafael Hui, who was also convicted on graft charges.
The case shocked the city and deepened anger over c ...
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Rare Indian rhinos face growing threat from poachers
Kaziranga, India (AFP) July 12, 2016 -
As night falls over the lush plains of India's Kaziranga national park, a small group of lightly armed forest guards sets out on foot to protect the world's largest population of one-horned rhinos.
These men with their ageing rifles and small plastic torches are on the front line of the battle against increasingly sophisticated international poaching networks that prey on the rare animals, e ...
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Tibet 'consensus' slammed by rights group
Beijing (AFP) July 12, 2016 -
A rights group on Tuesday slammed foreign representatives for attending a Chinese government-organised forum in Tibet that claimed international support for a "Lhasa Consensus" on economic development in the mainly Buddhist region.
Chinese state media said that "130 guests from over 30 countries and regions" agreed "Tibet will have a bright future!" at a two-day meeting in the regional capit ...
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Mexico to plant 18 million trees against pollution
Mexico City (AFP) July 12, 2016 -
Authorities will plant 18 million trees in Mexico City and its surrounding suburbs as part of efforts to combat air pollution, the government said Monday.
Environment Minister Rafael Pacchiano dubbed it a "historic reforestation" to reinforce the "green belt in the megalopolis."
The greater Mexico City area was hit by the worst air pollution in more than a decade in March, prompting auth ...
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After decades of clean up attempts, world's lakes still suffer from phosphorus pollution
Odense M, Denmark (SPX) Jul 12, 2016 -
Leading scientists warn: Phosphorus pollution is a major concern. We need to speed up recovery treatments of lakes - or accept poor freshwater quality. In a series of studies published in a special issue of the journal Water Research, leading scientists assess how to control phosphorus pollution in lakes.
In 40 % of Europe's lakes the water quality does not meet the demands of EUs Water Fr ...
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NASA's Field Campaign Investigates Arctic North American Ecosystems
Washington DC (SPX) Jul 12, 2016 -
Sampling charred soils in Saskatchewan, outfitting robins with GPS backpacks in Alberta, and measuring the growth rates of trees in northern Alaska - scientists with a decade-long NASA project are in the field this summer to study the impacts of a rapidly warming climate.
The Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment, or ABoVE campaign, which started field work in Alaska and northwestern Cana ...
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Scientists simulate tiny bacteria-powered 'windfarm'
Oxford CA (SPX) Jul 12, 2016 -
A team of scientists from Oxford University has shown how the natural movement of bacteria could be harnessed to assemble and power microscopic 'windfarms' - or other man-made micromachines such as smartphone components.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, uses computer simulations to demonstrate that the chaotic swarming effect of dense active matter such as bacteria can ...
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Beavers may restore imperiled streams, fish populations
Logan UT (SPX) Jul 12, 2016 -
Utah State University scientists report a watershed-scale experiment in highly degraded streams within Oregon's John Day Basin demonstrates building beaver dam analogs allows beavers to increase their dam building activities, which benefits a threatened population of steelhead trout.
"Whether or not beaver dams are beneficial to trout and salmon has been hotly debated," says ecologist Nick ...
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How plants sense electric fields
Wurzburg, Germany (SPX) Jul 12, 2016 -
The cells of plants, animals and humans all use electrical signals to communicate with each other. Nerve cells use them to activated muscles. But leaves, too, send electrical signals to other parts of the plant, for example, when they were injured and are threatened by hungry insects.
"We have been asking ourselves for many years what molecular components plants use to exchange information ...
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Monitoring Air Quality
Huntsville AL (SPX) Jul 12, 2016 -
Air quality is a global issue. Currents of air waft gaseous and particulate pollutants from region to region, country to country, and even continent to continent. Emissions from human activities, sunlight, weather, pollution from far away, wildfires, and wind-blown dust can all affect air quality. And it can change from day to day or even hour to hour. Addressing this global issue requires a glo ...
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Recreating ancient vertebrate's first step on dry land
Washington DC (SPX) Jul 12, 2016 -
Could a tail have allowed ancient vertebrates to make the transition from water to land? Reporting in Science today, researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Clemson University and National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis described results of a groundbreaking study to answer this question using amphibious fish, a custom-built robot and mat ...
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At the insect singles bar, cicadas provide the soundtrack
Gainesville FL (SPX) Jul 12, 2016 -
Summer days resonate with the sound of cicadas trying to make a love connection. But like a lot of singles, male cicadas don't always attract the kind of mates they're hoping for.
Cicada calls, it turns out, attract not just female cicadas, but sarcophagid flies in the mood for love, according to a study by Brian J. Stucky, a post-doctoral researcher at the Florida Museum of Natural Histor ...
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Researchers reveal first sightings of rare whales off New Zealand coast
Dunedin, New Zealand (SPX) Jul 12, 2016 -
For the first time in New Zealand waters an extremely rare grouping of Shepherd's Beaked Whales has been spotted from a University of Otago research vessel off the coast of the city of Dunedin in the South Island.
Dr Will Rayment, from Otago's Department of Marine Science, last week led a survey expedition of the submarine canyons off the Otago coast aboard the vessel Polaris II, and revea ...
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China has 'no historic rights' in South China Sea: tribunal
The Hague (AFP) July 12, 2016 -
China has no legal basis to claim "historic rights" to islands in the South China Sea and has violated Manila's sovereign rights, an international tribunal ruled on Tuesday, in a bitter dispute that risks stoking further tensions in Southeast Asia.
"The tribunal concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights within the sea areas falling within the 'nine-dash line' ...
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Israel ultra-Orthodox women go hi-tech
Holon, Israel (AFP) July 11, 2016 -
Bright and airy, the workspace at Comax is much like other Israeli hi-tech firms, except that a rabbi has carefully vetted its design to allow ultra-Orthodox Jewish women to work there.
The company in Holon near Tel Aviv employs 20 ultra-Orthodox women, one of several to do so as increasingly more female breadwinners from Israel's religious community join the secular work force.
Graduat ...
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The debut of a robotic stingray, powered by light-activated rat cells
Washington DC (SPX) Jul 11, 2016 -
Researchers have created a robotic mimic of a stingray that's powered and guided by light-sensitive rat heart cells. The work exhibits a new method for building bio-inspired robots by means of tissue engineering. Batoid fish, which include stingrays, are distinguished by their flat bodies and long, wing-like fins that extend from their heads.
These fins move in energy-efficient waves that ...
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New clues could help scientists harness the power of photosynthesis
University Park PA (SPX) Jul 11, 2016 -
Identification of a gene needed to expand light harvesting in photosynthesis into the far-red-light spectrum provides clues to the development of oxygen-producing photosynthesis, an evolutionary advance that changed the history of life on Earth.
"Knowledge of how photosynthesis evolved could empower scientists to design better ways to use light energy for the benefit of mankind," said Dona ...
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One reaction, two results, zero waste
Onna, Japan (SPX) Jul 11, 2016 -
Finding new and effective ways to create alcohols and esters is a constant target in chemistry, as these substances are important industrial compounds and feedstocks - the raw materials from which many industrial processes start. Alcohols have numerous medical and industrial applications, such as drugs and antifreeze.
Esters, a class of organic compounds, are utilized by the food and cosme ...
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