SCIENCE BOND

It used data on bird strikes to get a sense of what would happen if a small drone collided with a plane.  Only 3% of collisions between aircraft and birds similar in weight to domestic drones result in damage, found the George Mason University researchers.  An even smaller number caused injuries to humans, it found, and many of these were caused by flocks of birds.The research project was prompted by the recent introduction of rules in the US that make owners of drones weighing more than 250g register their craft with the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).  "Contrary to sensational media headlines, the skies are crowded not by drones, but by fowl," wrote Eli Dourado and Samuel Hammond in an article summarising their research.  US airspace is home to about 10 billion birds, said the researchers, but collisions between fowl and aircraft have remained rare. The pair analysed 25 years of data gathered by the FAA on bird strikes to determine what damage ...

AVG's Web TuneUp software is marketed as a free way for users to defend themselves from "hidden threats".  But earlier this month Google's security team spotted that it was overriding safety features built into the search firm's Chrome browser.  AVG said it had addressed the problem, but it now faces repercussions.  Google's Tavis Ormandy first flagged the issue to other members of his Project Zero team on 15 December. He highlighted that Web TuneUp was "force installing" a plug-in into Chrome, meaning that users of the product had no way to opt out of it altering the browser's settings.  As a result, he said, people's internet history and other personal data could be seen by others if they knew where to look online. Furthermore, he said, the code could potentially let hackers spy on people's email and other online activities.On 15 December, he contacted the Amsterdam-based cybersecurity firm. "Apologies for my harsh...

It had been thought that being unhappy was bad for health - particularly for the heart.  But the decade-long analysis, published in the Lancet, said previous studies had just confused cause and effect.  However, experts argued that unhappiness in childhood may still have a lasting impact.  A series of studies had shown that how happy people are, strongly predicts how long they are going to live.  Ideas included detrimental changes in stress hormones or the immune system resulting in a higher risk of death.  But the research team in the UK and Australia said those studies failed to deal with reverse causality - namely, that people who are ill are not very happy.Participants in the Million Women Study were asked to regularly rate their health, happiness and levels of stress.  The results showed that whether people were "never", "usually" or "mostly" happy had no impact on their odds of dying during the duration of the study once other factors such as ...

Puffins Atlantic puffins, European turtle doves, Slavonian grebes and pochards are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species for birds.  This means the number of UK species on the critical list has doubled to eight.  Puffins are vulnerable to pollution and declining food sources, ecologists say.  Another 14 UK species are considered to be "near threatened".  Martin Harper, conservation director with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), said the "global wave of extinction is now lapping at our shores".  "The erosion of the UK's wildlife is staggering and this is reinforced when you talk about puffin and turtle dove now facing the same level of extinction threat as African elephant and lion, and being more endangered than the humpback whale," he said.Although the Atlantic puffin population is still in the millions, fewer young birds are surviving to breed. Turtle dove Reasons...

The work showed that women who had a particular version of the BCAR1 gene were more likely than other women to have heart attacks and strokes. In contrast, men who had the gene were not at increased risk. Researchers say this adds to mounting evidence that there are differences in how men and women experience heart disease.  In the study, published in the journal, Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics, researchers from University College London pooled data from five European research projects, involving nearly 4,000 men and women.  Comparing their genes, the health of their blood vessels and the thickness of key arteries, scientists pinpointed a version of a gene that was linked to a higher risk of heart attacks, strokes and diseased blood vessels in women.  Though they still have work to do to fully understand the link, researchers believe the gene - when combined with a woman's naturally occurring oestrogen - could lead to an increased risk of heart disease. ...

Numbering moles on the right arm was observed to be a decent pointer of aggregate moles on the body. More than 10 demonstrates five times the typical danger.   The study, distributed in the British Journal of Dermatology, utilized information from 3,000 twins as a part of the UK.   GPs could utilize the discoveries to recognize those most at danger, it said.   Melanoma is a kind of skin tumor influencing more than 13,000 individuals in the UK every year.   It creates from strange moles, so the danger of being determined to have a melanoma is connected to the quantity of moles a patient has.   Scientists from King's College London concentrated on a huge gathering of female twins over a time of eight years, gathering data on skin sort, spots and moles on their bodies.  Subsequent to rehashing the activity on a littler gathering of around  400 men and ladies with melanoma, they thought of a snappy and simple approach to survey the danger of ski...