This year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas brought another bumper crop of tech for geeks and gearheads alike.
As usual, this year’s show was more about evolution than revolution. That, and the proliferation of sensors in everything from hairbrushes to toothbrushes. But one technology was clearly the belle of the geek prom: Amazon’s digital assistant, Alexa.
Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
Amazon’s Alexa Shines At CES 2017
NASA’s Discovery Program has selected two projects, both with Arizona ties, to delve into the ancient history of the solar system.
One craft, Psyche, will head to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The other, Lucy, will explore six asteroids that share an orbit with Jupiter. Scientists believe that the targets embody different aspects of early solar system history.
Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
NASA Funds 2 Asteroid Missions With Arizona Ties
An Arizona State University team has used a unique high-throughput screening system to complete the largest-ever analysis of microRNAs (miRNA), the puzzling little cousins of RNA that help regulate gene expression.
Their findings offer a new explanation for why groups of similar miRNA sequences, called miRNA families, are so plentiful in higher species of animals, including humans.
Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
ASU Completes Largest-Ever microRNA Study
The book The Runner’s Brain told runners how their minds could change their running. Now a University of Arizona study says the reverse might be true as well.
Using functional connectivity MRI (fcMRI), they found significant differences in areas that are active when the brain is at rest. Possibly, such networks could play a key role in the effects of aging and neurodegenerative diseases.
Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
Arizona Study: Brains Of Young Adult Runners Differ From Those Of Healthy Peers
Work in the Chilean desert by Arizona State University scientists has reopened debate regarding the biological origins of Martian silica fragments found in 2007 — and strengthened the case for life on Mars billions of years ago.
NASA’s Spirit rover churned up the opaline silica deposits as it explored the Columbia Hills area of Mars’s Gusev Crater.
Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
Silica Nodules In Chile Argue For Ancient Life On Mars