FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

	Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News
	(Sponsor this newsletter) Mars Rover Curiosity Hits the Road Again After Short Circuit NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is back in action for the first time after suffering a glitch late last month. The 1-ton Curiosity rover transferred powdered rock sample from its robotic arm to an analytical instrument on its body on Wednesday (March 11), and then drove about 33 feet (10 meters) toward the southwest on Thursday (March 12), NASA officials said. Curiosity had been stationary since Feb. 27, when it experienced a short circuit while attempting to transfer the sample, which the rover had collected from a rock dubbed Telegraph Peak. "That precious Telegraph Peak sample had been sitting in the arm, so tantalizingly close, for two weeks. Read More » SpaceX sees U.S. approval for rocket launches by June By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Space Exploration Technologies expects the U.S. Air Force to certify it to compete to launch national security satellites by June, President Gwynne Shotwell told Reuters on Friday. Shotwell said the company's relationship with the Air Force was better than ever after the two sides in January settled a lawsuit filed by SpaceX. SpaceX, founded by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, had accused the Air Force of dragging its feet in ending the current launch monopoly held by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co. Air Force and Pentagon officials credit SpaceX with energizing the government rocket launch market and pushing ULA to lower its prices, even before the privately held company has been certified to compete for rocket launches. Read More » Celebrate Pi Day of the Century with NASA Math Challenge Who said math couldn't be fun? In honor of the Pi Day of the century, 3.1415 (March 4, 2015), NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has created a dizzying math challenge. Hint: every solution will use the mathematical constant pi: the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. Read More » Pi, Anyone? The Secret to Memorizing Tens of Thousands of Digits This year, the event is even more special because, for the first time in a century, the date will represent the first five digits of pi: 3.14.15. The current Guinness World Record is held by Lu Chao of China, who, in 2005, recited 67,890 digits of pi. For many of these memory champions, the ability "to remember huge numbers of random digits, such as pi, is something they train themselves to do over a long period of time," said Eric Legge, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Read More » Math Nerds Celebrate 'Pi Day of the Century' at SXSW Festival The date and time spelled the first 10 digits of pi: 3.141592653. Revelers here at the 2015 South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival celebrated the event with free mini-pi(e)s, selfies with giant pi symbols, and a countdown to the big moment. Though we all know the famous number as pi, it was actually only given its dessert-sounding name about 300 years ago, when William Jones, a Welsh mathematician, began initially using the symbol π in a mathematical textbook in 1711 to refer to the perimeter of a circle. This morning, as the time approached, Stephen Wolfram, founder and CEO of Illinois-based software company Wolfram Research, explained some of the history of the ancient number. Read More »
	(Sponsor this newsletter)
	Delievered to you by Feedamail. Unsubscribe