Today's Reuters Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
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Enjoy the long weekend, if only for second
Fri,29 Jun 2012 04:22 AM PDT
Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - The world is about to get a well-earned long weekend but don't make big plans because it will only last an extra second. A so-called 'leap second' will be added to the world's atomic clocks as they undergo a rare adjustment to keep them in step with the slowing rotation of the earth. To achieve the adjustment, on Saturday night atomic clocks will read 23 hours, 59 minutes and 60 seconds before moving on to midnight Greenwich Mean Time. Super-accurate atomic clocks are the ultimate reference point by which the world sets its wrist watches. ... Full Story | Top |
China hails space mission's success as crew returns to Earth
Thu,28 Jun 2012 09:50 PM PDT
Reuters - BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Shenzhou 9 spacecraft returned to Earth on Friday, ending a mission that put the country's first woman in space and completed a manned docking test critical to its goal of building a space station by 2020. The spacecraft's gumdrop-shaped return capsule descended to Earth by parachute and touched down shortly after 10 a.m. EDT (0200 GMT) in China's northwestern Inner Mongolia region with its three-member crew, including female astronaut Liu Yang. Beijing has hailed the nearly two-week mission as a technical breakthrough for the country's growing space program. ... Full Story | Top |
West's wildfires a preview of changed climate: scientists
Thu,28 Jun 2012 06:14 PM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - Scorching heat, high winds and bone-dry conditions are fueling catastrophic wildfires in the U.S. West that offer a preview of the kind of disasters that human-caused climate change could bring, a trio of scientists said on Thursday. "What we're seeing is a window into what global warming really looks like," Princeton University's Michael Oppenheimer said during a telephone press briefing. "It looks like heat, it looks like fires, it looks like this kind of environmental disaster ... This provides vivid images of what we can expect to see more of in the future. ... Full Story | Top |
Saturn's largest moon likely has an underground ocean
Thu,28 Jun 2012 05:04 PM PDT
Reuters - CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found strong evidence for an ocean of water beneath the frozen crust of Saturn's largest moon Titan, scientists said Thursday. The finding propels Titan into a short list of places including Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's smaller moon Enceladus suspected of harboring underground seas. "The evidence is strong that Titan is squishy," said planetary scientist Jonathan Lunine, with Cornell University. The evidence was put together during six passes over Titan by Cassini, which is orbiting Saturn, between 2004 and 2011. ... Full Story | Top |
Privately owned telescope to hunt for killer asteroids
Thu,28 Jun 2012 02:55 PM PDT
Reuters - CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A California space research group plans to build, launch and operate a privately funded space telescope to hunt for asteroids that may be on a collision course with Earth, project managers said on Thursday. The B612 Foundation - named after a fictional planet in the book "The Little Prince" - is counting on private donors to raise money for the wide-angle, infrared telescope and its operations, estimated at a few hundred million dollars. The goal is to chart 500,000 asteroids that fly relatively close to Earth. ... Full Story | Top |
Scientists develop spray-on battery
Thu,28 Jun 2012 09:56 AM PDT
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists in the United States have developed a paint that can store and deliver electrical power just like a battery. Traditional lithium-ion batteries power most portable electronics. They are already pretty compact but limited to rectangular or cylindrical blocks. Researchers at Rice University in Houston, Texas, have come up with a technique to break down each element of the traditional battery and incorporate it into a liquid that can be spray-painted in layers on virtually any surface. ...
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World awaits latest in hunt for Higgs particle
Thu,28 Jun 2012 03:54 AM PDT
Reuters -  LONDON/GENEVA (Reuters) - Scientists hunting the Higgs subatomic particle will unveil results next week that could confirm, confound or complicate our understanding of the fundamental nature of the universe. Seldom has something so small and ephemeral excited such interest. The theoretical particle explains how suns and planets formed after the Big Bang - but so far it has not been proven to exist. The CERN research centre near Geneva will on July 4 unveil its latest findings in the search for the Higgs after reporting "tantalizing glimpses" in December. ...
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"Blade Runner" still subject of scientists' debate
Wed,27 Jun 2012 10:07 AM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - While South African athlete Oscar Pistorius attempts to become the first amputee runner to compete at the Olympic Games, scientists are still arguing whether his artificial limbs give him a critical advantage or not. Pistorius, born without fibulas and who had his lower legs amputated when a baby, uses carbon fiber prosthetic running blades and is hoping to qualify for the 400 meters at the Games. Pistorius beat the Olympic qualifying time of 45. ... Full Story | Top |
Promoting health? It's all in the game
Tue,26 Jun 2012 04:42 AM PDT
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - Meet Roxxi - a feisty and fully-armed virtual nanobot. Billed as "medicine's mightiest warrior", she's fighting an epic battle deep inside the human body where she launches rapid-fire assaults on malignant cells. Or, if it's not cancer but diabetes you're fighting, why not join Britney and Hunter, two digital kids whose adventures to other worlds are spurred on by regular and timely updates of your blood sugar levels. ...
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China manned docking a key step for space station
Sun,24 Jun 2012 03:22 AM PDT
Reuters -  SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China re-affirmed its goal of building a full-fledged space station by 2020 on Sunday, following a successful manual docking between a manned spacecraft and an experimental orbiting lab module. "Mastery of rendezvous and docking technology is a decisive step towards realizing the goals of the second stage in the development of China's manned space flight program. It also lays a firm foundation for the further construction of a space station," said Wu Ping, the spokesman for China's manned space program at a press conference following the docking exercise. ...
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U.S. seizes Tyrannosaurus bones on suspicion of smuggling
Fri,22 Jun 2012 02:38 PM PDT
Reuters -  NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. officials on Friday seized the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus dinosaur that Mongolia wants returned on suspicion that it was smuggled to the United States from the Gobi desert. The bones of the tyrannosaurus bataar, an eight-foot-tall, 24-foot-long cousin of the Tyrannosaurus rex, were taken in a moving van from the Cadogan Tate Fine Art storage company in Queens, where they had been stored in four large wooden crates. The President of Mongolia, Elbegdorj Tsakhia, demanded that the skeleton be returned to his country after it was auctioned on May 20 for $1. ...
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U.S. close to seizing disputed dinosaur skeleton
Thu,21 Jun 2012 05:41 AM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - U.S. authorities said they expect this week to seize a 70-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton that was discovered in Mongolia more 65 years ago and now is stored in New York and at the center of an international legal dispute. A federal judge in New York has signed a warrant that allows the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to seize the skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus bataar - an Asian cousin of the North American Tyrannosaurus rex - from Dallas-based Heritage Auctions. "We should have it by the end of the week," said Luis Martinez, a spokesman for U.S. ...
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Rio+20 summit begins under a cloud of criticism
Wed,20 Jun 2012 04:05 PM PDT
Reuters -  RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff welcomed world leaders to a rainy Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday under a cloud of criticism that a three-day summit is falling far short of its promise to establish clear goals for sustainable development. Before the official start of the event, known as Rio+20 because of the landmark Earth Summit in the city two decades ago, Brazil convinced visiting delegations to finalize a draft declaration for their leaders. ...
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Factbox: Main points in Rio+20 draft text
Wed,20 Jun 2012 01:52 PM PDT
Reuters - RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Countries attending a U.N. environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday will consider a draft agreement on global green growth, but expectations were low for an agreement. The summit, known as Rio+20, comes 20 years after the first Rio Earth summit in 1992 cleared the way for a global treaty on biodiversity, and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases, which is due to expire this year. ... Full Story | Top |
Analysis: Healthcare sees emerging future in frugal innovation
Wed,20 Jun 2012 06:05 AM PDT
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - When Argentinian car mechanic Jorge Odon was joking around with friends about how to get a cork out of an empty wine bottle using only a plastic bag, his thoughts were a long way from problem of maternal mortality. Yet in the middle of the night, it struck him that the problem with the cork and the bottle was remarkably similar to obstructed labor, when a baby can't get through the birth canal and puts its own and its mother's life at risk. ...
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