Melting methane doesn't fully explain warming 56 million years ago
Southampton, England (UPI) Sep 1, 2016 -
Some 56 million years ago, both ocean and surface temperatures on Earth began to rise. The period of global warming known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum lasted approximately 100,000 years.
New research questions whether the release of methane from the ocean floor fully explains this mysterious moment of climate change.
Much of the planet's methane is found in beneath the ...
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Study: Math-capable parents yield math-capable kids
Pittsburgh (UPI) Sep 1, 2016 -
If your dad or mom is good at math, chances are you're pretty good yourself.
In a recent study, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found a parent's performance on a standardized math test was highly predictive of their child's success on a similar test.
Parents and children were also found to be similarly gifted at mathematical computations, number-fact recall and word p ...
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Quest to find the 'missing physics' at play in landslides
Washington DC (SPX) Sep 01, 2016 -
During the 1990s, Charles S. Campbell, now a professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southern California, began exploring why large landslides flow great distances with apparently little friction, and the larger the volume of flowing rock the lesser the friction.
A landslide is a large-scale example of a granular flow, in which solid particl ...
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Fragile planet rows in 'one canoe,' say leaders in Hawaii
Honolulu (AFP) Sept 2, 2016 -
Spear-throwers in traditional dress greeted rowers aboard a double-hulled canoe at a beachside ceremony Thursday to open a major world conservation meeting in Hawaii, where leaders urged respect for the Earth, its natural resources and indigenous cultures.
The sunrise ritual on Waikiki Beach kicked off the meeting of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a 10-day conference tha ...
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Study documents a lost century for forest elephants
New York NY (SPX) Sep 01, 2016 -
Because forest elephants are one the slowest reproducing mammals in the world, it will take almost a century for them to recover from the intense poaching they have suffered since 2002. Not only does it take more than two decades for female forest elephants to begin reproducing, but they also give birth only once every five to six years. The findings are from a first-ever study of forest elephan ...
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More tomatoes, faster: Accelerating tomato engineering
Ithaca NY (SPX) Sep 01, 2016 -
Tomatoes are already an ideal model species for plant research, but scientists at the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) just made them even more useful by cutting the time required to modify their genes by six weeks.
While looking for ways to make tomatoes and other crop plants more productive, BTI Assistant Professor Joyce Van Eck and former postdoctoral scientist Sarika Gupta developed a be ...
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Analysts say oil market balance hasn't appeared yet
New York (UPI) Sep 1, 2016 -
A lauded possibility of a narrowing gap between supply and demand in the market for crude oil has yet to materialize on the global stage, analysts said.
For nearly two years, crude oil markets have been pressured by global economic growth that was too slow to take up the heavy supply of energy products. In May, the International Energy Agency said market conditions seemed to suggest tha ...
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Lundin next driller in line for Barents Sea
Oslo, Norway (UPI) Sep 1, 2016 -
With an emerging focus on northern reserves, a Norwegian energy regulator said it gave a petroleum company approval to start drilling in the Barents Sea.
The Petroleum Safety Authority of Norway said it gave its consent to Lundin to start drilling in a prospect about 135 miles northwest of Hammerfest in the Barents Sea.
"Drilling is scheduled to begin in early September and will ...
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Oil prices sink as balance sentiment fades
New York (UPI) Sep 1, 2016 -
Tepid labor reports from the United States and signs that global crude oil supplies were accumulating sent oil prices lower at the start of trading Thursday.
Crude oil prices started Wednesday in negative territory as market analysts discounted any signs of bullish momentum building in the second half of the year. Prices turned sharply lower late morning Wednesday after the U.S. Energy ...
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Development plans for Senegalese oil unveiled
Melbourne (UPI) Sep 1, 2016 -
An oil field off the coast of Senegal is considered a commercial prospect with a capacity to produce 140,000 barrels of oil per day, an Australian company said.
Australian energy company FAR Ltd. said the SNE oil field met the minimum threshold to be considered commercial. The company said the best estimate of contingent resources was around 200 million barrels offshore Senegal.
...
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Putin ally says oil privatization still on the table
Vladivostok, Russia (UPI) Sep 1, 2016 -
An oil executive in Russia said the privatization of one of the country's larger oil companies will be resolved when the timing is right.
According to Russian news agency Tass, a government spokesperson said in mid-August the privatization scheme for Bashneft was postponed.
The Kremlin has been reviewing privatization options as the Russian economy risks lingering in recession be ...
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China new home price increase picks up in August
Beijing (AFP) Sept 1, 2016 -
Increases in new home prices in China picked up in August from a month ago, a survey showed Thursday, raising worries of further rises in major cities.
The average price for new homes in 100 major cities gained 2.17 percent month-on-month in August to 12,270 yuan ($1,837) per square metre, the China Index Academy (CIA) said in a statement.
It accelerated from a rise of 1.63 percent in Ju ...
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EU Chamber urges China to lift foreign investment curbs
Beijing (AFP) Sept 1, 2016 -
A European lobby group in China on Thursday slammed the country's "unequal investment landscape" and called for it to drop wide-scale prohibitions on foreign investment, warning future access to the EU could be at stake.
The comments from the EU Chamber of Commerce in China come as Chinese buyers spend billions to snap up stakes in European companies, sports clubs, airports, and infrastructu ...
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Germany accuses Fiat of car emissions cheating
Frankfurt (AFP) Sept 1, 2016 -
The German government has accused Fiat-Chrysler of building emissions cheating technology into some vehicles, in a letter to the European Commission seen by AFP on Thursday.
"From our point of view, evidence has been provided of the use of an illegal defeat device" in some diesel-powered Fiat-Chrysler vehicles, the letter from the German transport ministry reads.
Germany launched an inve ...
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China puts on best face for G20 summit
Beijing (AFP) Sept 1, 2016 -
When China signed up to host this week's G20 summit two years ago, it seemed like an ideal venue to showcase its financial accomplishments and assume the mantle of international leadership.
Since then it has struggled to steer its giant economy through a slowdown, the free-wheeling stock market went into convulsions, and concerns over chronic industrial overcapacity and massive government le ...
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New plastic clothing material could keep people cool
Washington (AFP) Sept 2, 2016 -
American researchers have created a low-cost textile made of a plastic base that could cool the body when woven into clothing.
The engineers suggested in the US journal Science that the textile could become a way to keep people living in hot climates cool without using air conditioning.
"If you can cool the person rather than the building where they work or live, that will save energy," ...
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Berlin's IFA fair dons virtual reality headsets
Berlin (AFP) Aug 31, 2016 -
Virtual and augmented reality gadgets are expected to hog the limelight at Berlin's mega consumer electronics show IFA this week, as Pokemon Go gave a tantalising preview of the appetite for reality-altering technologies.
VR headsets and cameras will jostle for attention, while analysts expect smartphone makers to also unveil new models compatible with the latest in such technologies.
Th ...
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Researchers unveil ciliated microbots
Daegu, South Korea (UPI) Sep 1, 2016 -
Scientists in South Korea have created microbots that move and function like single cells.
The bots were specifically modeled after the genus of unicellular ciliated protozoans known as Paramecia. Cilia are the hair-like organelles protruding from the bodies of the paramecia. Their whiplash movement propel the protozoans.
Researchers at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Te ...
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Obama to press China on steel at G20, Lew says
Washington (AFP) Aug 31, 2016 -
US President Barack Obama will call for broader fiscal stimulus from other economies and press Beijing to limit steel capacity during his final G20 summit this weekend, US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Wednesday.
In an address in Washington prior to his departure for the Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou, China, Lew also said policy makers should respond to the populist discontent among vot ...
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Apple accuses European Commission of 'political crap' over EUR13bn fine
Dublin (AFP) Sept 1, 2016 -
Apple chief Tim Cook on Thursday slammed a European Commission ruling demanding the US tech behemoth pay Ireland EUR13 billion in back-taxes as "political crap", urging the Irish government to launch an appeal.
"It's total political crap," Cook told the Irish Independent newspaper, of European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager's assertion that the company had paid a tax rate of 0. ...
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Apple case highlights huge untaxed profits of corporate giants
Washington (AFP) Sept 1, 2016 -
The huge back-tax bill European authorities slapped on Apple has put a spotlight on $2.4 trillion in untaxed earnings parked offshore by US companies, a tempting target for governments seeking to strengthen their finances.
While Washington lays claim to rights to tax the money, critics say it represents profits transferred out of other countries' jurisdictions by accounting tricks.
They ...
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Continuous roll-process technology for transferring and packaging flexible LSI
Daejeon, South Korea (SPX) Sep 01, 2016 -
A research team led by Professor Keon Jae Lee from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and by Dr. Jae-Hyun Kim from the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) has jointly developed a continuous roll-processing technology that transfers and packages flexible large-scale integrated circuits (LSI), the key element in constructing the computer's brain such as CP ...
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Meteorite impact on a nano scale
Vienna, Austria (SPX) Sep 01, 2016 -
A meteorite impacting the earth under a grazing angle of incidence can do a lot of damage; it may travel a long way, carving a trench into the ground until it finally penetrates the surface. The impact site may be vaporized, there can be large areas of molten ground. All that remains is a crater, some debris, and an extensive trail of devastation on both sides of the impact site.
Hitting a ...
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Shrinking the inside of an explosion
Washington DC (SPX) Sep 01, 2016 -
Testing explosions is epic science. The most detailed studies of explosive charges have been conducted at national laboratories using a gun as big as a room to fire a flat bullet - the flyer plate, typically 100 millimeters in diameter - into an explosive charge inside a thick-walled chamber that contains the fierce blast. The tests require enormous facilities.
Though cumbersome, the flat ...
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Irish researchers join international team to make a breakthrough in fundamental physics
Dublin, Ireland (SPX) Sep 01, 2016 -
An international team of researchers have for the first time, discovered that in a very high magnetic field an electron with no mass can acquire a mass. Understanding why elementary particles e.g. electrons, photons, neutrinos have a mass is a fundamental question in Physics and an area of intense debate. This discovery by Prof Stefano Sanvito, Trinity College Dublin and collaborators in Shangha ...
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