'Unacceptable' power cuts blasted as California fire risk spreads south

Hundreds of thousands of Californians were still without electricity due to pre-emptive blackouts Thursday as hot, windy conditions causing wildfires spread south toward Los Angeles, in a situation blasted as "unacceptable" by the state's governor.

Museum explores spooky science behind 'Frankenstein', 'The Mummy'

What is the spookiest thing about "Frankenstein," "The Mummy" and "Dracula"? The hideous monster? The ancient curse? The sharp fangs?

Indonesia's Lion air set to list shares

Indonesia's Lion Air is set to launch an initial public offering, according to a company spokesman, in a listing that could reportedly raise up to $1.0-billion—one of the country's biggest-ever share sales.

CEO of German business software group SAP steps down

Bill McDermott, the American chief executive of massive German business software maker SAP, will quit after a decade in charge, the company said Friday.

Tesla comes when called, but can fray nerves

Roddie Hasan loves his Tesla, but after a fright using a feature that lets him summon the car as he might a dog, he says he will be walking to get it.

James Murdoch takes stake in Vice Media: report

James Murdoch, one of the sons of mogul Rupert Murdoch, has taken a minority stake in the fast-growing millennial-focused Vice Media, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

Apple chief defends pulling app used by Hong Kong protestors

Apple chief Tim Cook on Thursday defended the decision to pull an app used by protesters in Hong Kong to track police, according to a leaked email to employees obtained by a tech news site.

WeWork founder Adam Neumann removed from Forbes' billionaire list

Forbes on Thursday lopped more than $3 billion from its estimated net worth of WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann as the company faced skepticism regarding its future.

Engineers solve 50-year-old puzzle in signal processing

Something called the fast Fourier transform is running on your cell phone right now. The FFT, as it is known, is a signal-processing algorithm that you use more than you realize. It is, according to the title of one research paper, "an algorithm the whole family can use."

NASA launches satellite to explore where air meets space

NASA launched a satellite on Thursday night to explore the mysterious, dynamic region where air meets space.

NASA and SpaceX hope for manned mission to ISS in early 2020

SpaceX could launch US astronauts to the International Space Station as early as next year if tests on the company's long-delayed Crew Dragon capsule prove conclusive, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Thursday.

Artificial meat is now made in space, coming to a supermarket near you

Creating meat from cells is no longer the realm of science fiction: a Russian cosmonaut did it aboard the International Space Station, and it is just a matter of time before these products arrive in supermarkets.

In Nairobi, recycling poo is cleaning up the slums

"When I started, there was poop in bags everywhere," said Ricky Ojwang, skillfully navigating a rubbish-strewn canal in Mukuru, a Nairobi slum where he's worked to improve sanitation since 2012.

NASA administrator explains Twitter spat with SpaceX

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Thursday that a recent Twitter statement critical of SpaceX was a signal to all the space agency's contractors about realistic development timelines.

New research says changes in driver shifts and pick-up choices for food delivery services can boost profits

The food delivery business, popularized by mobile online services such as Grubhub, OrderUp, and DoorDash, has become a $200 billion industry, which is expected to grow by more than 15% annually over the next five years. New research published in the INFORMS journal Transportation Science reveals how food delivery businesses can implement changes in driver shifts and order delivery structures that can decrease costs and contribute to higher profits.

Taking RTKI drugs during radiotherapy may not aid survival, worsens side effects

Taking certain cancer-fighting drugs while undergoing radiation therapy may not increase survival for patients, but may, instead, increase side effects, according to a team of researchers. The drugs, however, may be beneficial for patients who are not undergoing radiation therapy.

Researcher uses sweat monitors to predict behavioral issues in adolescents severely affected with autism

When people become stressed, their bodies can respond by sweating. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri are monitoring how much adolescents severely affected by autism sweat in order to better understand when behavioral issues, such as aggression, are likely to occur.

Physicists look to navigational 'rhumb lines' to study polymer's unique spindle structure

From the intricate patterns of pollen grains to the logarithmic spirals of nautilus shells, biology is full of complex patterns, shapes, and geometries. Many of these intricate structures play important roles in biological function, but can be difficult to create in a lab without state-of-the-art equipment or expensive and energy-consuming processes and materials.

Combination of techniques could improve security for IoT devices

A multi-pronged data analysis approach that can strengthen the security of Internet of Things (IoT) devices—such as smart TVs, home video cameras and baby monitors—against current risks and threats has created by a team of Penn State World Campus students pursuing master of professional studies degrees in information sciences.

When studying immune cells, environment matters

For years, scientists have used cells grown in petri dishes to study the metabolic processes that fuel the immune system. But a new report in Immunity suggests looking outside the dish and into living organisms gives a drastically different view of the way immune cells process and use energy.

Beyond the 'replication crisis,' does research face an 'inference crisis'?

For the past decade, social scientists have been unpacking a "replication crisis" that has revealed how findings of an alarming number of scientific studies are difficult or impossible to repeat. Efforts are underway to improve the reliability of findings, but cognitive psychology researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst say that not enough attention has been paid to the validity of theoretical inferences made from research findings.

CF patients experience improved lung health with lumacaftor-ivacaftor but with caveats

In adolescent and adult patients with cystic fibrosis taking lumacaftor-ivacaftor (ORKAMBI), the combination drug appears to improve lung function and body weight and reduce the need for intravenous antibiotic treatment, according to a French study published online in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Skin cancer above the neck more likely to spread, research shows

New results from a descriptive, 6-month clinical study suggest that malignant melanoma (MM) that develops on the neck has a higher chance of spreading beyond the skin compared with MM that develops below the neck. However, even though significantly more of these study patients had below neck MM tumors at an advanced disease stage, none of them were found to have distant metastases, in which MM spreads to other distant parts of the body. Furthermore, only one of these below neck MM patients was diagnosed with positive lymph nodes. The study findings were presented today at the 28th EADV Congress in Madrid, Spain.