science news 18.12.2018

As tumblr is going dark, I need a new system to simultaneously share and archive the science news items that I pick up in my daily filter-feeding (in addition to twitter, which is good on the sharing but not so good on the archiving side). I'm thinking about one blogspot post each day (Tue-Sat) collecting the press releases I have highlighted that day. (In theory, the sharing options on EurekAlert would make it easy to create one blog post for every PR, but I don't want to swamp the blog tumblr-style.) So here's the test run for a daily collection, aiming to include quotes from the summary in cases where the title alone doesn't reveal what the story is about:

astrobiology / astronomy


NASA research reveals Saturn is losing its rings at 'worst-case-scenario' rate



Discovered: The most-distant solar system object ever observed

Alien imposters: Planets with oxygen don't necessarily have life


Narrowing the universe in the search for life


bio-inspired tech

Digital wood produced with 3D printing


climate & environment

The full story on climate change requires the long view

Researchers offer a new calculation that provides the long view of what nine different world regions have contributed to climate change since 1900. They also show how that breakdown will likely look by 2100 under various emission scenarios.


Climate change leading to water shortage in Andes, Himalayas

Warning over deep-sea 'gold rush'


conservation

Conservation success depends on habits and history

The ghosts of harvesting can haunt today's conservation efforts. Conserving or overharvesting a renewable resource like fish or other wildlife is often determined by habits and past decisions, according to a Rutgers-led study that challenges conventional expectations that the collapse of fast-growing natural resources is unlikely.


evolution

New discovery pushes origin of feathers back by 70 million years


'Treasure trove' of dinosaur footprints found in southern England


languages

Passive exposure alone can enhance the learning of foreign speech sounds

Ability to understand and subsequently speak a new language requires the ability to accurately discriminate speech sounds of a given language. When we start to learn a new language the differences between speech sounds can be very difficult to perceive. With enough active practice the ability to discriminate the speech sounds enhances.


maths

Moebius kaleidocycles: Sensational structures with potential applications