Canada proposes major fines on firms that violate privacy laws

The government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday presented a draft law that would impose major fines on companies that violate privacy law by misusing the personal data of their customers.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-canada-major-fines-firms-violate.html

Iota, weakened but deadly, rips through Central America

Storm Iota has killed at least nine people as it smashed homes, uprooted trees and swamped roads during its destructive advance across Central America, authorities said Tuesday, just two weeks after Hurricane Eta devastated parts of the region.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-iota-weakened-deadly-rips-central.html

European car sales swerve lower

European car sales swerved lower again in October, industry data showed Wednesday, as countries began to tighten restrictions on businesses to battle the spread of coronavirus infections.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-european-car-sales-swerve.html

Sorry, Grinch. Virus won't stop NORAD from tracking Santa

Children of the world can rest easy. The global pandemic won't stop them from tracking Santa Claus' progress as he delivers gifts around the globe on Christmas Eve.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-grinch-virus-wont-norad-tracking.html

FAA poised to clear Boeing 737 Max to fly again

The Federal Aviation Administration is expected on Wednesday to clear Boeing's 737 Max to fly again after grounding the jet for nearly two years due to a pair of crashes that killed 346 people.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-faa-poised-boeing-max.html

Historic deal revives plan for largest US dam demolition

An agreement announced Tuesday paves the way for the largest dam demolition in U.S. history, a project that promises to reopen hundreds of miles of waterway along the Oregon-California border to salmon that are critical to tribes but have dwindled to almost nothing in recent years.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-historic-revives-largest-demolition.html

Piecing together the Alaska coastline's fractured volcanic activity

Among seismologists, the geology of Alaska's earthquake- and volcano-rich coast from the Aleutian Islands to the southeast is fascinating, but not well understood. Now, with more sophisticated tools than before, a University of Massachusetts Amherst team reports unexpected new details about the area's tectonic plates and their relationships to volcanoes.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-piecing-alaska-coastline-fractured-volcanic.html

New electronic chip delivers smarter, light-powered AI

Researchers have developed artificial intelligence technology that brings together imaging, processing, machine learning and memory in one electronic chip, powered by light.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-electronic-chip-smarter-light-powered-ai.html

Machine learning innovation to develop chemical library for drug discovery

Machine learning has been used widely in the chemical sciences for drug design and other processes.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-machine-chemical-library-drug-discovery.html

NREL advanced manufacturing research moves wind turbine blades toward recyclability

A new material for wind blades that can be recycled could transform the wind industry, rendering renewable energy more sustainable than ever before while lowering costs in the process.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-nrel-advanced-turbine-blades-recyclability.html

Large predatory fish thrive on WWII shipwrecks off North Carolina coast

During a 2016 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expedition to explore a pair of World War II shipwrecks that lie off the North Carolina coast, marine scientists ensconced within glass-domed submersibles navigated to the Atlantic Ocean seafloor in the hope of profiling the fish communities residing on the wrecks. Some of the findings of this joint ecological-archaeological undertaking were published this week in the Ecological Society of America's journal Ecosphere. The two ships, a German U-boat and a Nicaraguan freighter, had not been seen by humans since they sank nearly 80 years ago during the Battle of the Atlantic. "These World War II shipwrecks are important historical monuments, but are also valuable habitat for fish," said Katrina Johnson, the paper's first author and a senior at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-large-predatory-fish-wwii-shipwrecks.html

Birds of a feather do flock together

Nearly 200 years ago, Charles Darwin noted striking diversity among the finches of the Galapagos Islands, and his observations helped him propose the role of natural selection in shaping species. Today, some biologists focus their attention on a related group of birds, the finch-like capuchino seedeaters of South America, and their studies are deepening our understanding of the forces that drive evolution.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-birds-feather-flock.html

Farms, tables and vast impacts between and beyond

Bountiful harvests in one location can mean empty water reservoirs and environmental woes far from farmlands. A unique study in this week's Nature Communications examines how food, energy, water and greenhouse gases create a vast front in the battle to feed the planet.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-farms-tables-vast-impacts.html

Oil droplet predators chase oil droplet prey

Oil droplets can be made to act like predators, chasing down other droplets that flee like prey. The behavior, which is controlled by chemical signaling produced by the droplets, mimics behavior seen among living organisms but, until now, had not been recreated in synthetic systems. This tunable chemical system could potentially serve a model to help understand interactions in many-body systems such as schools of fish, bacterial colonies, or swarms of insects.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-oil-droplet-predators-prey.html

Upgraded radar can enable self-driving cars to see clearly no matter the weather

A new kind of radar could make it possible for self-driving cars to navigate safely in bad weather. Electrical engineers at the University of California San Diego developed a clever way to improve the imaging capability of existing radar sensors so that they accurately predict the shape and size of objects in the scene. The system worked well when tested at night and in foggy conditions.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-radar-enable-self-driving-cars-weather.html

Tackling food allergies at the source

Food allergies are a big problem. About 7% of children and 2% of adults in the U.S. suffer from some kind of food allergy. These allergies cost a whopping $25 billion in health care each year. Then there's the time lost at school or work. And there's the risk of serious complications, even death.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-tackling-food-allergies-source.html

Small differences, big impact: A Hox paradigm for studying protein evolution

In a new study, researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have identified a handful of variations in an amino acid sequence critical for retaining the ancestral function of a gene over the course of 600 million years of evolution.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-small-differences-big-impact-hox.html

How fishermen have adapted to change over the past 35+ years

An analysis published in Fish and Fisheries notes that marine fisheries are increasingly exposed to external drivers of social and ecological change, and recent changes have had different impacts upon the livelihood strategies favored by fishermen based on the size of their boats.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-fishermen-years.html

Researchers hacked a robotic vacuum cleaner to record speech and music remotely

A team of researchers demonstrated that popular robotic household vacuum cleaners can be remotely hacked to act as microphones.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-hacked-robotic-vacuum-cleaner-speech.html

Review examines sexual aggression in mammals

A recent review of published studies in non-human mammals examines "sexual disturbance," or male behavior towards a female around mating that can be costly for the female—for example, that might inflict physical harm or cause mother-offspring separation. The findings are published in Mammal Review.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-sexual-aggression-mammals.html