Tuesday 4 June 2019

Air Canada gets into drone delivery business

Canada's flagship airline is getting into the business of delivering cargo by drones, announcing on Tuesday a sales agreement with Drone Delivery Canada to market its services across the country.

* This article was originally published here

Ant reactions to habitat disruptions inform a result of evolution

A Concordia biology professor is calling on ant experts to develop a set of common principles that influence the way the insects respond when their habitat undergoes severe disruption.

* This article was originally published here

California maintains life science dominance, report finds

California retains the crown as the nation's top recipient of federal life science funding, signifying the industry's dynamism, according to a new report from Biocom, a California life science trade group.

* This article was originally published here

Agent Unicorn headset for ADHD children may make understanding easier

The quest for a better understanding among scientists of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) goes on.

* This article was originally published here

New approach optimizes use of future wave electricity generators during disaster

When hurricanes strike, loss of electricity ranks as one of the top concerns for relief workers. Blackouts lasting a week or more can hamper recovery efforts, shutter hospitals, threaten public health and disrupt transportation. The monthslong effort to restore power to Puerto Rico following the 2017 hurricane season has led to renewed interest in finding innovative ways to get affected power grids back online.

* This article was originally published here

Hydrogen-power electric flying vehicle: Long road to liftoff

A transportation company is betting its sleek new hydrogen-powered electric flying vehicles will someday serve as taxis, cargo carriers and ambulances of the sky, but experts say they will have to clear a number of regulatory hurdles before being approved for takeoff years in the future.

* This article was originally published here

Nonsuicidal self-injury rate up in sexual-minority youth

(HealthDay)—The prevalence of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI; i.e., intentional self-harm without wanting to die) is higher among sexual-minority youth than heterosexual youth, according to a research letter published online June 3 in JAMA Pediatrics.

* This article was originally published here

iOS13: Here's what you need to know about Apple's new iPhone operating system

Goodbye iTunes, it's been a great 18-year ride.

* This article was originally published here

Would you eat genetically modified food if you understood the science behind it?

Jonathon McPhetres, a newly minted Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Rochester, admits he's "personally amazed" what we can do with genes, specifically genetically modified food—such as saving papayas from extinction.

* This article was originally published here

Study: Cholesterol in eggs tied to cardiac disease, death

The risk of heart disease and death increases with the number of eggs an individual consumes, according to a UMass Lowell nutrition expert who has studied the issue.

* This article was originally published here

Watchdog says FBI has access to about 640M photographs

A government watchdog says the FBI has access to about 640 million photographs—including from driver's licenses, passports and mugshots—that can be searched using facial recognition technology.

* This article was originally published here

Best practices of nucleic acid amplification tests for the diagnosis of clostridioides (clostridium)

A new review looks at the challenges of testing for Clostridioides (Clostridium) difficile infection (CDI) and recommendations for newer diagnostic tests. Accurate diagnosis of CDI is critical for effective patient management and implementation of infection control measures to prevent transmission. The research is published this week in the Clinical Microbiology Reviews.

* This article was originally published here

Networking with ghosts in the machine... and speaking kettles

Imagine for just a moment that your kettle could speak? What would it say? How would it feel? More importantly, what on earth would you ask it?

* This article was originally published here

Frogs find refuge in elephant tracks

Frogs need elephants. That's what a new WCS-led study says that looked at the role of water-filled elephant tracks in providing predator-free breeding grounds and pathways connecting frog populations.

* This article was originally published here

Laws of physics replace trial and error in new approaches to bioprinting

3-D printers can be used to make a variety of useful objects by building up a shape, layer by layer. Scientists have used this same technique to "bioprint" living tissues, including muscle and bone.

* This article was originally published here

Floating power plants

Paper, tin cans, glass—the world recycles as much as possible. So why not declare the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) a recycling product as well? Liquid fuels based on carbon will continue to play an important role in the future—despite international efforts to reduce them. So it seems sensible to recover the CO2 exhaust from the environment and use it again.

* This article was originally published here

Stanford Doggo: a highly agile quadruped robot

Researchers at Stanford University have recently created an open-source quadruped robot called Stanford Doggo. Their robot, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv and set to be published by IEEE Explore, exceeds the performance of many state-of-the-art legged robots in vertical jumping agility.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers find gene reduces benefit of exercise in preventing Alzheimer's

In the first study of its kind, neuroscience researchers at Rutgers University–Newark's Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience (CMBN) have found that an important genetic variation associated with Alzheimer's disease regulates the ability of physical fitness to help ward off the condition in African Americans, who are twice as likely to suffer from the disease as white Americans. The results of this Externalnew study, funded by a five-year grant to Professor Mark A. Gluck from the National Institute of Health's National Institute on Aging (NIA), was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

* This article was originally published here

Shared control allows a robot to use two hands working together to complete tasks

A team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin and the Naval Research Laboratory has designed and built a robotic system that allows for bimanual robot manipulation through shared control. In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the group explains the ideas behind their work and how well they worked in practice.

* This article was originally published here

Defense against wireless attacks using a deep neural network and game theory

A growing number of devices are now connected to the internet and are capable of collecting, sending and receiving data. This interconnection between devices, referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT), poses serious security threats, as cyberattackers can now target computers and smartphones, but also a vast array of other devices, such as tablets, smart watches, smart home systems, transportation systems and so on.

* This article was originally published here

Energy storage project in Utah described as world's largest of its kind

Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) announced an ambitious energy storage project to develop what it claims will be the world's largest energy storage project of its kind, in Utah. Renewable hydrogen is at the core.

* This article was originally published here

Diets of Latinos and blacks have greatest environmental impact per dollar spent on food

Despite spending less than white households on food overall, black and Latino households have more impact on the environment per dollar spent on food than white households, according to a new study published in Environmental Engineering Science.

* This article was originally published here

'Slothbot' takes a leisurely approach to environmental monitoring

For environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, infrastructure maintenance and certain security applications, slow and energy efficient can be better than fast and always needing a recharge. That's where "SlothBot" comes in.

* This article was originally published here