Science News
Einstein wouldn't like it: New test proves universe is "spooky"
By Ben Hirschler
The universe really is weird, which is bad news both for Albert Einstein and for would-be hackers hoping to break into quantum encryption systems.
Eighty years after the physicist dismissed as "spooky" the idea that simply observing one particle could instantly change another far-away object, Dutch scientists said on Wednesday they had proved decisively that the effect was real.
Writing in the journal Nature, researchers detailed an experiment showing how two electrons at separate locations 1.3 km (0.8 mile) apart on the Delft University of Technology campus demonstrated a clear, invisible and instantaneous connection.
Importantly, the new study closed loopholes in earlier tests that had left some doubt as to whether the eerie connection predicted by quantum theory was real or not.
Einstein famously insisted in a 1935 scientific paper that what he called "spooky action at a distance" had to be wrong and there must be undiscovered properties of particles to explain such counter-intuitive behavior.
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Ancient crystal suggests life on Earth appeared 4.1 billion years ago
Reuters
An ancient zircon crystal unearthed in Western Australia may hold evidence that life appeared on the planet 4.1 billion years ago, or about 300 million years earlier than previously thought, according to a team of U.S. researchers.
Scientists from Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles said they recently collected some 10,000 multibillion year-old zircons in Jack Hills, Australia, including one believed to contain a carbon deposit that is 4.1 billion years old, give or take 10 million years.
"Its complete encasement in crack-free, undisturbed zircon demonstrates that it is not contamination from more recent geologic processes ... (and) may be evidence for the origin of life on Earth by 4.1 (billion years ago)," according to a paper published by the team in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.
Scientists have used the fossil record to assert that the history of life on Earth began about 3.8 billion years ago, in the form of single-celled creatures. Humans are believed to have first appeared on Earth only about 200,000 years ago.
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Technology News
Behind the Scenes of Back to the Future II’s Epic Shoot
Peter Rubin
In case you’ve been asleep in the backseat of a DeLorean for a year, it’s “Back to the Future Day” i.e., the future date that Marty McFly and Jennifer and Doc Brown travel to in BTTF 2. The past month in particular has been an orgiastic display of marketing; seemingly every company that was represented in the movie’s future brand-scape—and there were a lot—has tried to capitalize on the occasion, from Pepsi to USA Today. (And plenty of other companies as well.) But all that nostalgia is forgetting one thing: the entire franchise almost didn’t happen.
Okay, so maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement, but director Robert Zemeckis, screenwriter Bob Gale, and executive producer Steven Spielberg did not have an easy go of it. They had to scrap their original Marty McFly—Eric Stoltz—halfway through the shoot. Michael J. Fox had to pull off the role of Marty despite filming full-time on Family Ties. Hell, Universal Pictures’ Sid Sheinberg hated the title Back to the Future and wanted to rename it Space Man From Pluto. Those, and dozens of other tidbits, show up in Back to the Future: The Ultimate Visual History, an exhaustive behind-the-scenes look at the filming of the trilogy, published yesterday by HarperCollins. We combed through the book to find some of our favorite nuggets from the shoots, particularly that for Back to the Future 2. You know that BTTF 2 trivia you were looking for? Well, listen to this!
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YouTube's video free-for-all is about to start charging admission
Google's massive video site will launch a subscription tier that strips out ads for a price. But the free ad-based option remains.
by Joan E. Solsman
NEW YORK -- Online video giant YouTube unveiled a paid service that takes away commercials for $10 a month.
The new YouTube Red is an alternative to the free, ad-based service, which remains an option.
"The YouTube you know and love continues to thrive and will continue to thrive," Chief Business Officer Robert Kyncl said Wednesday at a presentation for members of the press. "We have been working on bringing a whole new experience to fans...a new way to experience YouTube without ads."
The new tier asks the more than 1 billion people who visit YouTube each month to alter their assumptions about the worth of online video. By putting a dollar value on a site that was free with advertising for a decade, parent Google is showing it believes consumers will pay for its content and new perks. It also puts YouTube in competition with popular online subscription services like Netflix and Hulu. That means consumers more and more will need to consider how many entertainment sites deserve $10 a month out of their wallets.
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Environmental News
Sunscreen ingredient toxic to coral, killing off reefs: research
By Barbara Liston
A common ingredient found in sunscreen is toxic to coral and contributing to the decline of reefs around the world, according to new research published on Tuesday.
Oxybenzone, a UV-filtering chemical compound found in 3,500 brands of sunscreen worldwide, can be fatal to baby coral and damaging to adults in high concentrations, according the study published in the Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology.
The international research team that conducted the study, led by Craig Downs, found the highest concentrations of oxybenzone around coral reefs popular with tourists, particularly those in Hawaii and the Caribbean.
Downs, of the non-profit scientific organization Haereticus Environmental Laboratory in Virginia, said the study helped explain why scientists aren't seeing baby corals in many established reefs in resort areas.
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European birdwatchers unravel how birds respond to climate change
Faculty of Science - University of Copenhagen
New details on how birds respond to climate change have been revealed by volunteer bird watchers all over Europe. The information they've gathered shows birds respond to changing conditions in different seasons of the year. While some species benefit from these changes, birds that are adapted to colder regions stand to lose. This knowledge can help predict future bird communities in Europe and focus the effort to tackle the effects of climate change on the most vulnerable species.
For example, the study found warmer winters benefit resident birds, such as the Short-toed treecreeper and the Collared Dove, with more productive spring times benefiting short-distance migrants such as the Goldfinch and the Woodlark. Warmer or more productive periods complemented the early or peak breeding season for these birds.
The results are based on an incredibly large dataset from 18 different countries collected by volunteers and published in Global Change Biology led by the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen, together with BirdLife International and the European Bird Census Council.
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Medical News
Many Antidepressant Studies Found Tainted by Pharma Company Influence
A review of studies that assess clinical antidepressants shows hidden conflicts of interest and financial ties to corporate drugmakers
By Roni Jacobson
After many lawsuits and a 2012 U.S. Department of Justice settlement, last month an independent review found that antidepressant drug Paxil (paroxetine) is not safe for teenagers. The finding contradicts the conclusions of the initial 2001 drug trial, which the manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline had funded, then used its results to market Paxil as safe for adolescents.
The original trial, known as Study 329, is but one high-profile example of pharmaceutical industry influence known to pervade scientific research, including clinical trials the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires pharma companies to fund in order to assess their products. For that reason, people who read scientific papers as part of their jobs have come to rely on meta-analyses, supposedly thorough reviews summarizing the evidence from multiple trials, rather than trust individual studies. But a new analysis casts doubt on that practice as well, finding that the vast majority of meta-analyses of antidepressants have some industry link, with a corresponding suppression of negative results.
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U.K. Nurse with Serious Ebola Complications Has Meningitis Caused by Persisting Virus
The Scottish patient, who first contracted Ebola in December 2014, is being treated with an experimental antiviral drug
Reuters
A Scottish nurse who contracted and initially recovered from Ebola, but then suffered relapsing illness, has meningitis caused by the virus persisting in her brain, doctors treating her said on Wednesday.
Pauline Cafferkey was not reinfected with the Ebola virus, doctors said, but it had remained in her body since her initial recovery and had re-emerged to cause life-threatening complications.
"The virus re-emerged around the brain and around the spinal column to cause meningitis," said Michael Jacobs, an infectious diseases consultant who has been treating Cafferkey in London.
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Space News
White dwarf upsets planetary system, consumes evidence
by Christopher Crockett
At least one poor planet — or possibly over half a dozen — is becoming a snack for the core of a dead star. A white dwarf dubbed WD 1145+017, in the constellation Virgo, hosts an orbiting trail of rocky debris, researchers report in the Oct. 22 Nature. The detritus might be all that remains of a dying solar system.
The debris cloud, detected by the Kepler space telescope, gave itself away by repeatedly blocking some starlight. Researchers also observed traces of heavy elements such as aluminum, silicon and nickel on the white dwarf. Ordinarily these would sink into the star quickly and disappear, so the atoms probably are raining down on the white dwarf as the planets break apart. The presence of heavy elements in this and other white dwarfs suggests these dead stars periodically enjoy a planetary snack.
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Computers Would Never Have Found "Alien Superstructure" Star--It Required Citizen Science
Volunteer astronomers first spotted a strange star in Kepler telescope data that has the Internet humming with speculation
By Jennifer Hackett
Last week the internet was abuzz with rumors of a strange star that some suggested might host an extraterrestrial construction. Astronomers say that scenario is a slim possibility. A more likely explanation is that the weird star, called KIC 8462852, is orbited by a swarm of comets, which is a pretty interesting idea on its own. But either way, this intriguing star might never have been found. The oddball was just one of thousands of stars being monitored by NASA’s Kepler telescope, which searches for the telltale dips in a star’s light caused when exoplanets pass in front of it. Computers spot most of the promising planet candidates in the data, but this star would have fallen through the cracks if volunteer citizen scientists had not flagged its unusual signature. “This wouldn’t have been picked up by a computer algorithm,” says Yale University astronomer Tabetha Boyajian, who manages the Planet Hunters crowdsourcing project to analyze Kepler’s data. “We weren’t looking for something like this.”
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Odd News
Un-intelligent Design: No Purpose for Vestigial Ear-Wiggling Reflex
by Stephanie Pappas
Around the human ear are tiny, weak muscles that once would have let evolutionary ancestors pivot their ears to and fro. Today, the muscles aren't capable of moving much — but their reflex action still exists.
These muscles are vestigial, meaning they're remnants of evolution that once had a purpose but no longer do. However, humans may be able to repurpose these useless muscles for their own uses, according to Steven Hackley, a psychologist at the University of Missouri and author of a new review of research on the forgotten muscles in the journal Psychophysiology. For one, these muscles activate in response to positive emotions, for reasons nobody truly understands. This odd fact creates a handy tool for psychologists seeking an objective way to measure emotion.
And then there are the educational implications: This muscle reflex is new evidence against the notion of creationism or intelligent design, Hackley said.
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