Science & Technology

What is net neutrality and why does it matter? Here’s a quick look

November 23, 2017, 6:00am Business

“Net neutrality” regulations, designed to prevent internet service providers like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Charter from favoring some sites and apps over others, are on the chopping block. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican, on Tuesday unveiled a plan to undo the Obama-era rules that have been in… Read story

Researchers invent camouflaged membrane that hides like an octopus

November 23, 2017, 5:46am Life

No other animal has mastered camouflage like the octopus. The mightiest of these morphing creatures, the mimic octopus, contorts its body into a thin ribbon and adopts the colors of a venomous sea serpent to scare predators away. Divers have seen mimic octopuses masquerade as lion fish, sea stars, shrimp… Read story

These animals have the fastest circadian clocks found in nature

November 23, 2017, 5:41am Life

Within each of our brains is a biological clock. Instead of ticking hands, we have the ebb and flow of hormones, urging us to sleep and to rise. Our internal clock closely follows the 24-hour period of the Earth’s rotation, though it is not perfectly synchronous. Human clocks run slightly… Read story

The Neanderthals’ demise focus of research

November 23, 2017, 5:41am Life

What killed off the Neanderthals? It’s a big debate, and now a study says that no matter what the answer, they were doomed anyway. Read story

The slope of a Martian crater, which has seasonal dark streaks called “recurrent slope lineae,” that a report interprets as granular flows, rather than flowing water.

Study: Streaks on Mars are sand, not water

November 21, 2017, 6:00am Nation & World

A new study suggests that dark streaks on Mars represent flowing sand — not water. Read story

Self-taught rocket scientist plans to launch over ghost town

Daredevil/limousine driver Mad Mike Hughes is shown with with his steam=powered rocket constructed out of salvage parts on a five-acre property that he leases in Apple Valley, Cal. Hughes plans to launch his homemade contraption on Saturday near the ghost town of Amboy, Cal., at a speed of roughly 500 miles-per-hour.

November 20, 2017, 1:30pm Nation & World

The countdown to launch creeps closer and there’s still plenty for self-taught rocket scientist “Mad” Mike Hughes to do: Last-second modifications to his vessel. Pick up his flight suit. Leave enough food for his four cats — just in case anything happens. Read story

Endangered orcas compete with seals, sea lions for salmon

In this Sept. 2017, photo made with a drone, a young resident killer whale chases a chinook salmon in the Salish Sea near San Juan Island, Wash. The photo, made under a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) permit, which gives researchers permission to approach the animals, was made in collaboration with NOAA Fisheries/Southwest Fisheries Science Center, SR3 Sealife Response, Rehabilitation, and Research and the Vancouver Aquarium's Coastal Ocean Research Institute. Endangered Puget Sound orcas that feed on chinook salmon face more competition from seals, sea lions and other killer whales than from commercial and recreational fishermen, a new study finds.

November 20, 2017, 9:15am Northwest

Harbor seals, sea lions and some fish-eating killer whales have been rebounding along the Northeast Pacific Ocean in recent decades. But that boom has come with a trade-off: They’re devouring more of the salmon prized by a unique but fragile population of endangered orcas. Read story

Researcher says ‘radical farming ideas’ could trap more carbon dioxide in soil

Marc Kramer, assistant professor of environmental chemistry at Washington State University Vancouver, looks over an isotope-ratio mass spectrometer in a lab on campus. Kramer has discovered that vast amounts of carbon can be stored by soil minerals more that a foot below the surface.

November 20, 2017, 6:03am Clark County News

Deep-rooted plants may be key to removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere if land managers can capitalize on a new scientific finding from Marc Kramer, an assistant professor at Washington State University Vancouver, and his associates. Read story