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Submission + - A fish makes a tongue out of water (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Using a group of high-speed cameras and x-ray videos, the scientists observed the strange way mudskipper fish feeding in the laboratory. Their analysis showed that the fish carry mouthfuls of water up onto the land and then expel the water at the moment they lunge at their prey. The water allows the fish to form an airtight seal and generate enough suction to move the water and their meal back toward the esophagus. Furthermore, the motion of a bone in the fishes’ throat, known as the hyoid, closely resembles that of other terrestrial animals, especially newts, which use true tongues to eat. The authors suggest that the mudskipper’s “hydrostatic” tongue may serve as the evolutionary bridge that allowed our aquatic ancestors to begin feeding on land.

Submission + - Methane leak unlocks potential for revolutionary graphene production (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Caltech scientists have published a new technique [http://www.caltech.edu/news/caltech-scientists-develop-cool-process-make-better-graphene-45961] for producing graphene at room temperature — ushered by an accidental methane leak — which could be critical for future commercial production of the material. Manufacturing graphene has often been problematic, with scientists required to ‘grow’ the material in furnaces reaching 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, frequently resulting in strain and deformation. Today researchers at the California Institute of Technology have revealed a method which will enable a faster and cooler production of high-quality graphene sheets. David Boyd, who developed the technique following a 'lucky' failed experiment in 2012, said of the technology's potential: “You could imagine something crazy. You could wrap a building in graphene to keep it from falling over.”

Submission + - Elon Musk On Autonomous Cars: Could Human Drivers Eventually Be Outlawed? (hothardware.com) 1

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: One of the highlights of the opening keynote at the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference in San Jose (GTC), was NVIDIA CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang's special guest, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk and the "fireside chat" the two participated in. With NVIDIA's focus on deep learning and machine vision technologies for cars, much of the talk centered around autonomous vehicles and the notion that someday they may be so reliable, that they're actually safer on the road than cars operated by humans. Think about it. Is the idea of a vehicle that recognizes distance, velocity, weather conditions and real-time changes, faster than a human can, all that far-fetched? In the interview shot here, Musk even thinks we may get to a day when human drivers could be outlawed in favor of an all autonomous driving society.

Submission + - Gates: More Agility Needed to Deal With Large Epidemics (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Of the recent Ebola crisis, Bill Gates says that this disease has awaken the world to the fact that we are not properly prepared to deal with a global epidemic. Even if we signed up lots of experts right away, few organizations are capable of moving thousands of people, some of them infected, to different locations on the globe, with a week's notice. Data is another crucial problem. During the Ebola epidemic, the database that tracks cases has not always been accurate. This is partly because the situation is chaotic, but also because much of the case reporting has been done first on paper. Then there's our failure to invest in effective medical tools like tests, drugs and vaccines. On average it has taken an estimated one to three days for test results to come back — an eternity when you need to quarantine people. Drugs that might help stop Ebola were not tested in patients until after the epidemic had peaked, partly because the world has no clear process for expediting drug approvals. Compare all of this to the preparation that nations put into defense, which has high-quality mobile units ready to be deployed quickly.

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