Tuesday, May 31, 2016

The Mighty Claw of the Mantis Shrimp Inspires Next-Gen Helmets and Body Armor and other top stories.

  • The Mighty Claw of the Mantis Shrimp Inspires Next-Gen Helmets and Body Armor

    The powerful, hammer-like rounded claws of the mantis shrimp are incredibly strong, making them ideal for cracking open the hard shells of clams and crabs (its favored prey), and for warding off predators. Now those claws are also inspiring scientists keen on building super-strong materials to make tougher body armor and football helmets. There are two types of mantis shrimp (a.k.a. stomatopods): “spearers” (that spear the prey) and “smashers” (that smash the prey) A team of researchers from t..
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  • Bee Pollen is Full of Pesticides Like Mosquito-Repellants

    Bee Pollen is Full of Pesticides Like Mosquito-Repellants
    Bees that live next to corn and soybean fields spend only a minority of their time feeding on these crop plants; instead, they mostly seek out pollen from flowering weeds, trees and gardens nearby. In the course of their foraging, they are exposed to a surprisingly wide and concerning range of pesticides, new research shows.In a study published May 30 in the journal Nature Communications, researchers Elizabeth Long and Christian Krupke show that bees next to corn fields collected pollen contai..
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  • Tiny probe could produce big improvements in batteries and fuel cells

    Tiny probe could produce big improvements in batteries and fuel cells
    IMAGE: This is a nanoscale map of the metal ceria produced with the new probe shows a higher response, represented by a yellow color, near the boundary between grains of metal.... view more Credit: Ehsan Nasr Esfahani/University of Washington WASHINGTON, D.C., May 31, 2016 -- A team of American and Chinese researchers has developed a new tool that could aid in the quest for better batteries and fuel cells. Although battery technology has come a long way since Alessandro Volta fir..
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  • NOAA: Please don't take selfies with the seals

    NOAA: Please don't take selfies with the seals
    Harbor seal mother and baby. Courtesy of Dr. Brandon Southall, NMFS/OPR There are few things in this world more adorable than a baby seal, but beachgoers will have to restrain their enthusiasm. It's currently the season for seal birth in New England, and humans getting too close could disrupt colonies or even get harmed by protective parents.In a post to the NOAA website, the administration has asked visitors not..
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  • Amazing Pluto Shines in Best Close-Up Views Yet (Photo, Video)

    Amazing Pluto Shines in Best Close-Up Views Yet (Photo, Video)
    Pluto's exotic and incredibly varied landscapes dazzle in the sharpest views of the dwarf planet released to date. The images, which feature a resolution of about 260 feet (80 meters) per pixel, were captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its epic flyby of Pluto on July 14, 2015. Mission team members have stitched the photos into a high-resolution mosaic and used them to create a stunning new video of Pluto that highlights the dwarf planet's towering water-ice mountains and n..
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  • Not so dry after all: Moon's water came mostly from asteroids, not comets, study says

    Not so dry after all: Moon's water came mostly from asteroids, not comets, study says
    Icy comets may have a reputation for being the inner solar system’s ancient water delivery system, but a new study finds that most of the water in our nearest neighbor, the moon, was actually delivered by asteroids around 4.5 billion to 4.3 billion years ago.The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, offer a window on the processes that shaped the moon and gave the Earth much of the water for its oceans – and may shed light on the dynamics of the giant planets in the solar sy..
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  • Climate Change This Week: Tragic Drought in Africa & India, New Clean Power Strides, and More!

    Climate Change This Week: Tragic Drought in Africa & India, New Clean Power Strides, and More!
    Today, the Earth got a little hotter, and a little more crowded. Saving the BB: the beautiful biodiversity like this scarlet macaw found in Latin American forests, is another important reason to conserve these carbon-storing systems. Source peoplesforum.info Forests: the cheapest way to store carbon OO Latin America: New Forests Can Store Carbon Dioxide - If Allowed to Grow 40 Years - as abandoned farmland gets reforested, says a new study. Based on reforestation so far, in another 40 years..
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  • Giant dead basking shark resurfaces in Boston Harbor

    By Associated Press May 31 at 1:10 PM BOSTON — The carcass of a basking shark at least 24 feet long that was first seen stuck to the bow of a container ship in Boston Harbor more than two weeks ago has resurfaced. A New England Aquarium spokesman says officials at first weren’t sure what kind of marine creature it was Tuesday. Tony Lacasse says aquarium biologists who went to scene determined it was a shark based on its cartilaginous fins. It’s unclear if the creature was killed by the ship ..
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  • What's an Amazonian fish doing in a California pond? (+video)

    What's an Amazonian fish doing in a California pond? (+video)
    A California fisherman’s latest catch had an unexpectedly human grin.When Juan Gallo cast a line in a Petaluma, Calif., pond, he expected to pull up a typical fish, perhaps a catfish. Instead, he reeled in a pacu fish, a relative of the piranha with humanlike teeth.The problem: Pacu fish aren't native to California and are illegal to own in the state. But they are widely available in pet stores throughout the United States."It landed on the dirt and you could tell it wasn't anything we had seen..
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  • The Milky Way Is Lighter Than We Thought

    The Milky Way Is Lighter Than We Thought
    Want to start a fight between astrophysicists who study the Milky Way? Ask them to tell you how much the galaxy weighs. Now, a new modeling method by researchers at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, may help put those debates to rest. According to the new work, presented May 31 at a Canadian Astronomical Society conference in Winnipeg, the Milky Way contains the same amount of mass as 700 billion suns—and that puts it on the slimmer side of the scale. At the same time, our galaxy seems..
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Huge Fire Breaks Out in Indian Arms Depot, 17 Feared Dead .Cincinnati zoo kills gorilla to save child who slipped into enclosure .
SpaceX lands fourth booster after successful Falcon 9 launch .Stamkos returns for Game 7 loss to Penguins .

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