Fuel for earliest life forms: Organic molecules found in 3.5 billion-year-old rocks

A research team including the geobiologist Dr. Helge Missbach from the University of Cologne has detected organic molecules and gases trapped in 3.5-billion-year-old rocks. A widely accepted hypothesis says that the earliest life forms used small organic molecules as building materials and energy sources. However, the existence of such components in early habitats on Earth was as yet unproven. The current study, published in the journal Nature Communications, shows that solutions from archaic hydrothermal vents contained essential components that formed a basis for the earliest life on our planet.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-02-fuel-earliest-life-molecules-billion-year-old.html

CSI Solid-State: The fingerprints of quantum effects

In solid-state physics, the precise interactions of electrons are analyzed through meticulous detective work, ultimately to gain a better understanding of fundamental physical phenomena.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-02-csi-solid-state-fingerprints-quantum-effects.html

Saharan dust expected to hit Europe again this weekend

Dust and sand particles whipped up from the Sahara will once again blanket skies over Europe this weekend, impacting air quality, the European Union's Copernicus satellite monitoring service said Friday.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-02-saharan-europe-weekend.html

French village says 'non' to Elon Musk's space-age internet

To realise his dream of satellite-powered internet, tech billionaire Elon Musk needs to install antennas around the world. In northern France, a village hopes he'll decide to keep those antennas far away.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-02-french-village-elon-musk-space-age.html

China considers new actions to lift flagging birthrate

China is considering additional measures to increase its flagging birthrate, more than four years after ending its controversial one-child policy.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-02-china-actions-flagging-birthrate.html

Honda taps tech expert as chief to steer in ecological times

Toshihiro Mibe, a research expert tapped to be president of Japanese automaker Honda on Friday, promised to steer the company toward new growth by focusing on ecological models and safety technology.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-02-honda-tech-expert-chief-ecological.html

COVID-19: Future targets for treatments rapidly identified with new computer simulations

Researchers have detailed a mechanism in the distinctive corona of COVID-19 that could help scientists to rapidly find new treatments for the virus, and quickly test whether existing treatments are likely to work with mutated versions as they develop.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-02-covid-future-treatments-rapidly-simulations.html

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.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-02-social-carbon-roadmap-analysis.html

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.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-02-quartz-crystals-stomach-fossil-bird.html

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.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-02-congress-internet-giants-disinformation.html

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".

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-02-uk-court-uber-drivers-status.html

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.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-02-touchdown-nasa-perseverance-rover-ready.html

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.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-02-bitcoin-goldrush-speculative.html

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.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-02-chatty-robot-franzi-german-patients.html

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.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-02-facebook-inflated-advertising-audiences-lawsuit.html

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.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-02-renault-pandemic-loss.html

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.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-02-india-glacier-disaster-highlights-himalayan.html

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.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-02-indonesia-volcano-erupts-spews-red-hot.html

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.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-02-massive-breach-fuels-action-cybersecurity.html

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.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-02-kia-hyundai-recovering-days-long-network.html

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.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-02-australian-leader-urges-facebook-news.html

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.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-02-consumers-prices.html

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.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-02-mobile-contact.html