http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. An international team of scientists reveals that a unique strain of potato blight they call HERB-1 triggered the Irish potato famine of the mid-19th century. http://phys.org/news288291675.html Biology 2013-05-21T00:00:02-07:00 Reinvigorated technology player Yahoo! Monday unveiled a dusted-off design of its flickr photo platform only hours after the company's dramatic acquisition of blogging site Tumblr. http://phys.org/news288297606.html Technology 2013-05-20T19:40:48-07:00 Monday's powerful tornado in suburban Oklahoma City loosely followed the path of a killer twister that slammed the region in May 1999. http://phys.org/news288297518.html Space & Earth 2013-05-20T19:38:43-07:00 The billion-dollar deal for Tumblr has stirred talk on the next big acquisition target in the sector, with cash-rich tech giants looking for the next potential star. http://phys.org/news288290933.html Technology 2013-05-20T18:50:01-07:00 An Alaska volcano eruption is prompting regional airlines to cancel flights to nearby communities, including a town that reported traces of fallen ash. http://phys.org/news288291033.html Space & Earth 2013-05-20T18:10:01-07:00 Tumblr lovers were quick to express ire in trademark sassy posts Monday after news that Yahoo! is buying the blogging platform in a $1.1 billion deal. http://phys.org/news288290853.html Technology 2013-05-20T17:48:00-07:00 The world's most valuable company, Apple Inc., employs a group of affiliate companies located in Ireland to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. income taxes, a Senate investigation has found—and its CEO will be questioned Tuesday. http://phys.org/news288290823.html Technology 2013-05-20T17:47:15-07:00 Three New York University researchers from China divulged results from a U.S.-funded study to Chinese competitors in exchange for tuition, rent and other expenses, federal prosecutors said Monday. http://phys.org/news288290766.html Other Sciences 2013-05-20T17:46:12-07:00 Pulsars have a number of unusual qualities. Like zombies, they shine even though they're technically dead, and they rotate rapidly, emitting powerful and regular beams of radiation that are seen as flashes of light, blinking on and off at intervals from seconds to milliseconds. A NASA team has built a first-of-a-kind testbed that simulates these distinctive pulsations. http://phys.org/news288290372.html Space & Earth 2013-05-20T17:39:43-07:00 In a new business, sometimes the better part of wisdom is knowing when to quit, a new study concludes. http://phys.org/news288290285.html Other Sciences 2013-05-20T17:38:11-07:00 (Phys.org) —Herds of wooly mammoths once shook the earth beneath their feet, sending humans scurrying across the landscape of prehistoric Ohio. But then something much larger shook the Earth itself, and at that point these mega mammals' days were numbered. http://phys.org/news288290206.html Space & Earth 2013-05-20T17:37:25-07:00 (Phys.org) —NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has used the drill on its robotic arm to collect a powdered sample from the interior of a rock called "Cumberland." http://phys.org/news288289520.html Space & Earth 2013-05-20T17:25:48-07:00 (Phys.org) —Waterproof fabrics that whisk away sweat could be the latest application of microfluidic technology developed by bioengineers at the University of California, Davis. http://phys.org/news288284578.html Chemistry 2013-05-20T16:20:06-07:00 The U.S. military has shut down wireless internet service at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba because of online hacking threats. http://phys.org/news288284888.html Technology 2013-05-20T16:20:02-07:00 Shipwrecks lying deep off America's coasts are more often historical artifacts than present-day threats from leaking old oil tanks, a new federal report says. http://phys.org/news288284863.html Space & Earth 2013-05-20T16:07:51-07:00 Meeting the demand for more data storage in smaller volumes means using materials made up of ever-smaller magnets, or nanomagnets. One promising material for a potential new generation of recording media is an alloy of iron and platinum with an ordered crystal structure. Researchers led by Professor Kai Liu and graduate student Dustin Gilbert at the University of California, Davis, have now found a convenient way to make these alloys and tailor their properties. http://phys.org/news288284396.html Physics 2013-05-20T16:00:36-07:00 (Phys.org) —Enough Northwest wind energy to power about 85,000 homes each month could be stored in porous rocks deep underground for later use, according to a new, comprehensive study. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Bonneville Power Administration identified two unique methods for this energy storage approach and two eastern Washington locations to put them into practice. http://phys.org/news288283006.html Technology 2013-05-20T16:00:06-07:00 (Phys.org) —Entanglement, by general consensus of physicists, is the weirdest part of quantum science. To say that two particles, A and B, are entangled means that they are actually two parts of an inseparable quantum thing. An important consequence of this inherent kinship is that measuring a property of A (say, the particle's polarization) is necessarily to know the corresponding property of B, even if you're not there with a detector to observe B and even if (as explained below) the existence of that property had no prior fixed value until the moment particle A was detected. http://phys.org/news288283333.html Physics 2013-05-20T15:42:22-07:00 Fifteen years of research at the University of California, Davis, is being turned into commercial products by Dysonics, a startup company based in San Francisco. Since becoming the first "graduate" from the Engineering Translational Technology Center, a technology incubator at the UC Davis College of Engineering, Dysonics has launched an iPhone app and is developing a broad product range for future launch. The company currently has 10 employees. http://phys.org/news288283127.html Technology 2013-05-20T15:38:55-07:00 (Phys.org) —The Amazon rain forest, popularly known as the lungs of the planet, inhales carbon dioxide as it exudes oxygen. Plants use carbon dioxide from the air to grow parts that eventually fall to the ground to decompose or get washed away by the region's plentiful rainfall. http://phys.org/news288282832.html Space & Earth 2013-05-20T15:33:59-07:00 The miniaturization of electronics continues to create unprecedented capabilities in computer and communications applications, enabling handheld wireless devices with tremendous computing performance operating on battery power. This same miniaturization of electronic systems is also creating new opportunities in biotechnology and biophysics. http://phys.org/news288282622.html Nanotechnology 2013-05-20T15:30:28-07:00 (Phys.org) —Imagine a bendable tablet computer or an electronic newspaper that could fold to fit in a pocket. http://phys.org/news288282505.html Nanotechnology 2013-05-20T15:28:34-07:00 In the United States, rivers and their floodplains are well-documented and monitored. Ecuador's largest river, however, remains largely mysterious. Research led by Michigan State University is helping the South American country unravel the Napo River's mystique to better balance its economic and environmental treasures. http://phys.org/news288282338.html Space & Earth 2013-05-20T15:25:45-07:00 Hong Kong on Monday launched a ten-year plan to reduce waste by 40 percent per person as part of efforts to catch up with other leading Asian cities and avert a looming environmental crisis. http://phys.org/news288282201.html Space & Earth 2013-05-20T15:23:45-07:00 Unilever claimed bragging rights Monday to the most-watched Internet commercial of all time—a three-minute study of women's self-perception that stars a forensic artist. http://phys.org/news288282167.html Technology 2013-05-20T15:22:57-07:00 A cocktail of non-pathogenic bacteria naturally occurring in the digestive tract of healthy humans can protect against a potentially lethal E. coli infection in animal models according to research presented today at the 113th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. The research, conducted by scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, could have important implications for the prevention or even treatment of this disease. http://phys.org/news288270355.html Biology 2013-05-20T15:00:23-07:00 A new study of both computer-created and natural proteins suggests that the number of unique pockets – sites where small molecule pharmaceutical compounds can bind to proteins – is surprisingly small, meaning drug side effects may be impossible to avoid. The study also found that the fundamental biochemical processes needed for life could have been enabled by the simple physics of protein folding. http://phys.org/news288270799.html Chemistry 2013-05-20T15:00:20-07:00 Future teams of subterranean search and rescue robots may owe their success to the lowly fire ant, a much-despised insect whose painful bites and extensive networks of underground tunnels are all-too-familiar to people living in the southern United States. http://phys.org/news288270951.html Biology 2013-05-20T15:00:17-07:00 Parasitic wasps switch off the immune systems of fruit flies by draining calcium from the flies' blood cells, a finding that offers new insight into how pathogens break through a host's defenses. http://phys.org/news288269607.html Biology 2013-05-20T15:00:07-07:00 The Supreme Court has affirmed the authority of federal regulators to try to speed local government decisions on proposals to build or expand cell phone towers. http://phys.org/news288272810.html Technology 2013-05-20T13:10:01-07:00