Today's Reuters Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
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China aims to land probe on moon next year
Mon,30 Jul 2012 04:54 AM PDT
Reuters - BEIJING (Reuters) - China aims to land its first probe on the moon in the second half of next year, state media reported on Monday, the next step in an ambitious space progam which includes building a space station. In 2007, China launched its first moon orbiter, the Chang'e One orbiter, named after a lunar goddess, which took images of the surface and analyzed the distribution of elements. That launch marked the first step in China's three-stage moon mission, to be followed by an unmanned moon mission and then the retrieval of lunar soil and stone samples around 2017. ... Full Story | Top |
NASA rover closing in on Mars to hunt for life clues
Sun,29 Jul 2012 02:13 PM PDT
Reuters -  CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's Mars rover was on its final approach to the red planet on Sunday, heading toward a mountain that may hold clues about whether life has ever existed on Mars, officials said. The rover, also known as Curiosity, has been careening toward Mars since its launch in November. The nuclear-powered rover the size of a compact car is expected to end its 352-million-mile (567-million-km) journey on August 6 at 1:31 a.m. EDT. ...
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Scientists unlock ocean CO2 secrets key to climate: study
Sun,29 Jul 2012 10:07 AM PDT
Reuters - SINGAPORE (Reuters) - From giant whirlpools to currents 1,000 km wide, scientists said on Monday they have uncovered how vast amounts of carbon are locked away in the depths of the Southern Ocean, boosting researchers ability to detect the impact of climate change. Oceans curb the pace of climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. The Southern Ocean is the largest of these ocean carbon sinks, soaking up about 40 percent of mankind's CO2 absorbed by the seas. ... Full Story | Top |
Russian unmanned spacecraft docks on second try
Sun,29 Jul 2012 05:41 AM PDT
Reuters - MOSCOW (Reuters) - An upgraded Russian unmanned spacecraft successfully linked up with the International Space Station on Sunday on its second attempt to test a new docking system, Russia's space agency said. The docking set aside doubts over the new Kurs-NA rendezvous system that will deliver astronauts and future cargoes to the orbital station after a botched first test when the equipment malfunctioned due to low temperatures earlier this week. The operating system functioned properly after it was allowed to warm up, according to a statement from the U.S. space agency NASA. ... Full Story | Top |
Opening ceremony ends long road for volunteer actors
Fri,27 Jul 2012 02:47 PM PDT
Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - The exuberant show that Britain put on for the world on Friday was the culmination of months of rainy rehearsals by thousands of volunteers. For some of the 7,500 amateur performers, preparing for the opening ceremony of the London Olympics demanded long, late commutes and personal expense - but it has generated memories expected to last a lifetime. "As soon as I found out in January that this is what I was going to be doing, I put my life on hold. ... Full Story | Top |
Danish mission to amass data for North Pole claim
Fri,27 Jul 2012 09:12 AM PDT
Reuters - COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark will dispatch a scientific expedition to the Arctic Ocean at the end of the month to gather data before it submits a formal claim to a vast tract north of Greenland that includes the North Pole. Such a claim would be made under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), setting up a possible clash of interests with fellow Arctic coastal states Russia and Canada that are making their own claims. ... Full Story | Top |
Analysis: Evidence for climate extremes, costs, gets more local
Fri,27 Jul 2012 07:23 AM PDT
Reuters -  OSLO (Reuters) - Scientists are finding evidence that man-made climate change has raised the risks of individual weather events, such as floods or heatwaves, marking a big step towards pinpointing local costs and ways to adapt to freak conditions. "We're seeing a great deal of progress in attributing a human fingerprint to the probability of particular events or series of events," said Christopher Field, co-chairman of a U.N. report due in 2014 about the impacts of climate change. ...
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In New Mexico, daredevil skydives from 18 miles above Earth
Thu,26 Jul 2012 08:21 AM PDT
Reuters -  (Reuters) - An Austrian daredevil jumped from a balloon flying at an altitude more than 18 miles above Earth on Wednesday, falling at speeds topping 500 miles per hour (805 kilometers per hour) in a training run for his attempt to make the world's highest skydive. Felix Baumgartner landed safely in a desert near Roswell, New Mexico after leaping from an estimated 96,940 feet wearing a pressurized space suit equipped with an oxygen supply. The test parachute jump was the second for Baumgartner, who is on a quest to complete a record-breaking skydive from 120,000 feet in the coming weeks. ...
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Pop music too loud and all sounds the same: official
Thu,26 Jul 2012 06:02 AM PDT
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - Comforting news for anyone over the age of 35, scientists have worked out that modern pop music really is louder and does all sound the same. Researchers in Spain used a huge archive known as the Million Song Dataset, which breaks down audio and lyrical content into data that can be crunched, to study pop songs from 1955 to 2010. ...
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Homemade South Korean satellite to go boldly into space
Wed,25 Jul 2012 08:12 PM PDT
Reuters -  SEOUL (Reuters) - Years of rummaging through back-alley electronics stores will pay off later this year for a South Korean artist when he fulfills his dream of launching a homemade, basement-built satellite into space. "Making a satellite is no more difficult than making a cellphone," said Song Hojun, 34, who said he built the $500 OpenSat to show people they could achieve their dreams. "I believe that not just a satellite, but anything can be made with the help of the Internet and social platforms. I chose a satellite to show that symbolically. ...
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Anti-matter universe sought by space-based detector
Wed,25 Jul 2012 12:18 PM PDT
Reuters -  GENEVA (Reuters) - A seven metric ton particle detector parked for over a year on the International Space Station (ISS) aims to establish whether there is an unseen "dark universe" woven into the cosmos, the scientist leading the project said on Wednesday. And the detector, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer or AMS, has already broken all records in registering some 17 billion cosmic rays and storing data on them for analysis, Nobel physics laureate Samuel Ting told a news conference. "The question is: where is the universe made from anti-matter?" said Ting. ...
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Are mutant mosquitoes the answer in Key West?
Tue,24 Jul 2012 09:37 AM PDT
Reuters -  KEY WEST, Florida (Reuters) - When Hadyn Parry, chief executive officer of the British biotechnology company Oxitec Ltd, appeared at a Key West town hall meeting to present his plan to use genetically modified mosquitoes in the fight to eradicate dengue fever, he came up against familiar resistance. Alarmed local residents at the April meeting raised the specter of their island paradise being turned into an experimental "Jurassic Park" for mutant mosquitoes. "Have there been studies of what can happen if someone is bit by one of these mosquitoes?" said Key West realtor Mila de Mier. ...
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Ion Torrent vies for $10 million genome prize
Tue,24 Jul 2012 07:08 AM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters) - A genome-sequencing contest announced six years ago finally has its first entrant: Life Technologies Corp.'s Ion Torrent, which on Monday said it was entering the fray. The Archon Genomics X Prize will award $10 million to the first team that sequences the complete genomes of 100 people aged 100 or older in 30 days or less, for no more than $1,000 each, and with an error rate of no more than 0.0001 percent. ... Full Story | Top |
New Russian space station docking gear test fails
Tue,24 Jul 2012 01:52 AM PDT
Reuters - MOSCOW (Reuters) - A test of new spacecraft docking gear for Russian flights to the International Space Station failed, the U.S. and Russian space agencies said on Tuesday, casting doubt on the automated system meant to simplify missions to the orbiting outpost. The space agencies said a new docking attempt would likely take place on Sunday, after an unmanned Japanese spacecraft, the HTV-3, reaches the station and is manually berthed by astronauts later this week. ... Full Story | Top |
Bacteria outbreak in Northern Europe due to ocean warming, study says
Sun,22 Jul 2012 10:02 AM PDT
Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - Manmade climate change is the main driver behind the unexpected emergence of a group of bacteria in northern Europe which can cause gastroenteritis, new research by a group of international experts shows. The paper, published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Sunday, provided some of the first firm evidence that the warming patterns of the Baltic Sea have coincided with the emergence of Vibrio infections in northern Europe. Vibrios is a group of bacteria which usually grow in warm and tropical marine environments. ... Full Story | Top |
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