269 articles from THURSDAY 29.8.2019

Trump cancels Poland visit as hurricane heads for Florida

US President Donald Trump on Thursday cancelled a trip to Poland as Hurricane Dorian bore down on Florida, where it could make landfall as a dangerous Category 4 storm. Trump, who had been scheduled to attend World War II anniversary commemorations in Poland this weekend, said he would focus instead on preparations for the approaching hurricane. Vice President Mike Pence would go to Poland in...

Trump declares new Space Command key to American defense

Space Force, which has become a reliable applause line for Trump at his campaign rallies, has yet to win final approval by Congress. The role of the new Space Command is to conduct operations such as enabling satellite-based navigation and communications for troops and commanders in the field and providing warning of missile launches...

Billionaires Jack Ma and Elon Musk debate good, evil and AI at conference in China

In the debate over artificial intelligence, whose side is Elon Musk on? Musk, who's in charge of SpaceX, Tesla and the Neuralink brain interface venture, sized up the odds with AliBaba founder Jack Ma today during a widely watched one-on-one session at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai. The way Musk sees it, the prospects aren't great for humans if future AI agents...

Atmospheric battle will determine where Dorian hits Florida

It's a battle of mammoth meteorological forces, and at stake is where Hurricane Dorian strikes the United States. Four days before the system is expected to come ashore, Dorian could hit practically anywhere in Florida because the weather forces that will determine its path have not yet had their showdown, meteorologists said. As of Thursday, the National Hurricane Center had practically all of...

US rolls back regulations on industrial methane leaks

The US Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday plans to roll back regulations that limit leaks of potent greenhouse gas methane from pipelines and wells, even as some industry players opposed the move. It is the latest in President Donald Trump's long battle against environmental protection rules, coming weeks after his administration made fundamental changes to a widely popular...

Venice Film Review: Brad Pitt in ‘Ad Astra’

In the opening sequence of "Ad Astra," Roy McBride (Brad Pitt), a veteran U.S. astronaut, is doing what he does at the top of a space antenna, an elaborate piece of technological scaffolding so tall that it juts right up from the earth into the outer void. (It’s enough to make that famous 1932 photograph...

US calls for rescinding rules on oil industry methane leaks

The Trump administration moved Thursday to revoke Obama-era regulations on climate-changing methane leaks from oil facilities, a proposal that environmental advocates said would renounce key federal legal authority to regulate the gas's outsize damage to the climate.

Food, predators, and people influence giraffe social behavior

The behavior of giraffe groups with calves is influenced more strongly by the risk of predators than is the behavior of all-adult groups, which is mostly determined by the availability of food. An international team of researchers from Penn State and the University of Zürich studied giraffe behavior in a 2,000 square kilometer region of Africa and pinpointed some of the special requirements...

A new way to measure how water moves

When a chemical spills in the environment, it's important to know how quickly the spill will spread. If a farmer irrigates a crop, the person will need to know how fast the water should move through the soil and be absorbed by the roots. In both cases, a good understanding of water pore structure is necessary.

New research reveals that a human stomach pathogen is attracted to bleach

Researchers at the University of Oregon have uncovered a molecular mechanism by which the human stomach pathogen Helicobacter pylori is attracted to bleach, also known as hypochlorous acid or HOCI. The study revealed that H. pylori uses a protein called TlpD to sense bleach and swim toward it, and that the bacteria Salmonella enterica and Escherichia coli can use TlpD-like proteins to detect...

Human stomach pathogen is attracted to bleach

Researchers have uncovered a molecular mechanism by which the human stomach pathogen Helicobacter pylori is attracted to bleach. The study revealed that H. pylori uses a protein called TlpD to sense bleach and swim toward it. The researchers propose H. pylori uses the protein to sense sites of tissue inflammation, which could help colonize the stomach and perhaps locate damaged tissue and...

Crouching lion, hidden giraffe

The behavior of giraffe groups with calves is influenced more strongly by the risk of predators than is the behavior of all-adult groups, which is mostly determined by the availability of food.

Concerns arise over Hawaii prosecutor son's job

The man responsible for prosecuting the mostly Native Hawaiian elders arrested for protesting construction of a giant telescope said there is no conflict of interest, even though his son works for one of the embattled project's partners. Hawaii County Prosecuting Attorney Mitch Roth's 22-year-old son Aaron works at NASA's federally funded Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by the...

First all-metamaterial optical gas sensor

Researchers have developed the first fully-integrated, non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) gas sensor enabled by specially engineered synthetic materials known as metamaterials. The sensor has no moving parts, requires little energy to operate and is among the smallest NDIR sensors ever created.

A new way to measure how water moves

A new method to measure pore structure and water flow can help scientists more accurately and cheaply determine how fast water, contaminants, nutrients and other liquids move through the soil -- and where they go.

Brain waves detected in mini-brains grown in a dish

Scientists have created miniature brains from stem cells that developed functional neural networks. Despite being a million times smaller than human brains, these lab-grown brains are the first observed to produce brain waves that resemble those of preterm babies.

How visceral leishmaniasis spread through central-Southern Brazil

The protozoan disease visceral leishmaniasis (VL) has recently expanded to places where it had not previously been reported and has expanded its geographic distribution within countries where it was already endemic. Now, researchers describe three dispersion routes that have moved Leishmania infantum into and through central-Southern Brazil, helping shed light on the overall mechanisms of VL...

Cracking the code of a brain cancer that keeps coming back

Researchers used a powerful new computer-assisted technology called single-cell transcriptomics that measures thousands of individual cells simultaneously to map cell types and molecular cascades that drive the growth of SHH-medulloblastoma. The scientists report they discovered new treatment strategies for the disease that may help patients fight a recurrent cancer.