Australia and Facebook in talks over sweeping news ban

Australia and Facebook held high-stakes talks Friday after the social media giant sparked global outrage by blacking out news for its Australian users, as Canberra insisted it wouldn't back down on a new law that would force the tech firm to pay for journalistic content.

Winter weather closes Texas chip plants, worsening shortages

The winter storm ravaging the United States has forced the shutdown of computer chip manufacturing in Texas, threatening to worsen a global semiconductor shortage.

Facebook blocks medical data shared by apps

Facebook has started blocking sensitive health information that third-party apps had been sharing with the social network in violation of its own rules, said New York officials who investigated the situation.

Time-lapse reveals the hidden dance of roots

Duke researchers have been studying something that happens too slowly for our eyes to see. A team in biologist Philip Benfey's lab wanted to see how plant roots burrow into the soil. So they set up a camera on rice seeds sprouting in clear gel, taking a new picture every 15 minutes for several days after germination.

Depression, anxiety, loneliness are peaking in college students

A survey by a Boston University researcher of nearly 33,000 college students across the country reveals the prevalence of depression and anxiety in young people continues to increase, now reaching its highest levels, a sign of the mounting stress factors due to the coronavirus pandemic, political unrest, and systemic racism and inequality.

New technology enables predictive design of engineered human cells

Northwestern University synthetic biologist Joshua Leonard used to build devices when he was a child using electronic kits. Now he and his team have developed a design-driven process that uses parts from a very different kind of toolkit to build complex genetic circuits for cellular engineering.

Researchers find evidence of protein folding at site of intracellular droplets

Scientists have discovered the first evidence of protein folding driven by liquid-liquid phase separation, a phenomenon in which fluids form into microscopic droplets and separate inside cells—like drops of oil in water.

Making sense of the mass data generated from firing neurons

Scientists have achieved a breakthrough in predicting the behavior of neurons in large networks operating at the mysterious edge of chaos.

Spina bifida can be caused by uninherited genetic mutations

Genetic mutations which occur naturally during the earliest stages of an embryo's development can cause the severe birth defect spina bifida, finds a new experimental study in mice led by UCL scientists.

How to calculate the social cost of carbon? Researchers offer roadmap in new analysis

The Biden administration is revising the social cost of carbon (SCC), a decade-old cost-benefit metric used to inform climate policy by placing a monetary value on the impact of climate change. In a newly published analysis in the journal Nature, a team of researchers lists a series of measures the administration should consider in recalculating the SCC.

Quartz crystals in the stomach of fossil bird complicates the mystery of its diet

It's hard to know what prehistoric animals' lives were like—even answering seemingly simple questions, like what they ate, can be a challenge. Sometimes, paleontologists get lucky, and pristine fossils will preserve an animal's stomach contents or provide other clues. In a new study in Frontiers in Earth Science, researchers investigating the fossil of a bird that lived alongside the dinosaurs got more questions than answers when they found quartz crystals in the bird's stomach.

Brazil passes 10 mn coronavirus infections

Brazil, the country with the second-highest coronavirus death toll, passed the 10-million mark for reported infections Thursday, amid a deadly second wave and problems with its vaccination campaign.

Congress to question US internet giants over disinformation

The chiefs of Facebook, Google and Twitter are slated to testify on March 25 at a US congressional hearing on misinformation plaguing online platforms.

UK top court to rule on Uber drivers' status

Britain's Supreme Court is to rule Friday on the employment status of Uber drivers in a judgement with wider implications for the "gig economy".

Touchdown: NASA's Perseverance rover ready to search for life on Mars

After seven months in space, NASA's Perseverance rover overcame a tense landing phase with a series of perfectly executed maneuvers to gently float down to the Martian soil Thursday and embark on its mission to search for signs of past life.

Bitcoin goldrush sparks fears of speculative bubble

Bitcoin has enjoyed a record-breaking week after electric carmaker Tesla and Wall Street finance giants sparked a goldrush for the world's most popular virtual currency, but bubble fears persist.

Chatty robot Franzi cheers up German patients

Cleaning robot Franzi makes sure floors are spotless at the Munich hospital where she works, and has taken on a new role during the pandemic: cheering up patients and staff.

Facebook inflated its advertising audiences: lawsuit

Facebook inflated estimates about how many people would see targeted ads, but ignored the problem in order to generate more revenue, according to civil suit documents unveiled Thursday.

Renault says pandemic pushed it into record loss in 2020

French automaker Renault said Friday it booked a record loss in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic hit its performance and looked set to weigh on the outlook this year as well.

India's glacier disaster highlights Himalayan dangers

Long before this month's deadly flash flood in a remote Indian Himalayan valley, Kundan Singh Rana knew that all the construction work in the fragile region would one day mean disaster.

Indonesia volcano erupts, spews red-hot lava

Indonesia's Mount Merapi, one of the world's most active volcanoes, erupted on Friday, belching out fiery red lava.

Massive breach fuels calls for US action on cybersecurity

Jolted by a sweeping hack that may have revealed government and corporate secrets to Russia, U.S. officials are scrambling to reinforce the nation's cyber defenses and recognizing that an agency created two years ago to protect America's networks and infrastructure lacks the money, tools and authority to counter such sophisticated threats.

Kia and Hyundai recovering from days-long network outages

Kia Motors America says it's restoring services crippled by a computer network outage that began Saturday and which apparently affected dealers' ability to order vehicles and parts and knocked offline a smartphone app that owners use to remotely start and warm up vehicles.

Australian leader urges Facebook to lift its news blockade

Australia's prime minister on Friday urged Facebook to lift its blockade of Australian users and return to the negotiating table with news publishing businesses, warning that other countries would follow his government's example in making digital giants pay for journalism.

What happens when consumers pick their own prices?

Researchers from California Polytechnic State University and University of Oregon published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines the potential benefits for firms and consumers of pick-your-price (PYP) over pay-what-you-want (PWYW) and fixed pricing strategies.

Researchers design more secure mobile contact tracing

For public health officials, contact tracing remains critical to managing the spread of the coronavirus—particularly as it appears that variants of the virus could be more transmissible.

To end HIV epidemic, we must address health disparities

Scientific strides in HIV treatment and prevention have reduced transmissions and HIV-related deaths significantly in the United States in the past two decades. However, despite coordinated national efforts to implement HIV services, the epidemic persists, especially in the South. It also disproportionately impacts marginalized groups, such as Black/African-American and Latinx communities, women, people who use drugs, men who have sex with men, and other sexual and gender minorities. Following the release of the HIV National Strategic Plan and marking two years since the launch of the Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America (EHE)—a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services initiative to reduce new HIV transmissions by at least 90% by 2030—researchers, advocates, and other stakeholders reported on the HIV epidemic response in The Lancet HIV in the U.S. Series, published online today.

Study finds racial and ethnic disparities in flu vaccine uptake among people aged 65 and older in the USA

A new study published today in The Lancet Healthy Longevity journal has found significant racial and ethnic disparities in uptake of the seasonal influenza vaccine among people aged 65 years and over in the U.S..