|  Gobbling Up Space Debris: A Pac-Man Approach Proposed  | The intent is to eliminate threatening, human-made orbital debris. A new entry to de-litter Earth orbit is the Clean Space One project, spearheaded by researchers from eSpace, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne's (EPFL) Center for Space Engineering and Signal Processing 5 Laboratory and HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland. SwissCube is a joint cubesat project of various laboratories at EPFL and universities in Switzerland.
| Read More » Star Trek-style home elevator could replace stairlifts By Matthew Stock For people living in a house with more than one storey, stairlifts or home elevators are often a necessity of life as they get older and find it harder to get up and down the stairs. Normal stairlifts have the disadvantage of being a permanent and visible addition to a staircase, while traditional home elevators are bulky and often impractical for most homes. A company in England is hoping their novel design will fill the gap in the market for a new kind of home elevator. Read More » Tree of 40 Fruit: Dazzling Franken-Tree Has Roots in Science  | The so-called "Tree of 40 Fruit" — blossoming in a variety of pretty pink hues when completed — is rooted in science. The eye-catching artistic rendering of the tree brought worldwide attention to its creator, Sam Van Aken, a professor in the school of art at Syracuse University in New York. "[Van Aken has] taken the idea of a single root stock and a single variety and amplified it to express something creative, and that's the artistic side of it for him," said Greg Peck, an assistant professor of horticulture at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
| Read More » Acceptance of Gays and Lesbians Is Growing Dramatically In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, many gays and lesbians celebrated. A quick glance at most public opinion polls reveals that explicit attitudes toward gays and lesbians have been on the upswing for some time. For example, more than half of Americans — 53 percent — told the Gallup organization that they supported same-sex marriage in 2011, up from 27 percent in 1996. Read More » Remains of Nazi-Destroyed Synagogue Found Using Radar  | Ground-penetrating radar is helping archaeologists locate the buried remains of the Great Synagogue of Vilna in Lithuania, a Jewish place of worship that was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II, the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) reports. Lithuanian Jews, also known as Litvaks, worshipped there until it was lost during the Holocaust about 70 years ago, according to the IAA. Excavations of the synagogue are scheduled to commence in 2016, and any artifacts found will be put on display as part of a memorial for the synagogue and its congregation, the IAA said.
| Read More » Weed: Good for the Bones? Got pot? Marijuana might take a cue from the famous advertising slogan for milk. The compound cannabinoid cannabidiol (CBD), which is a nonhallucinogenic chemical in marijuana plants, helps heal bone fractures, the research finds. Read More » Sparse Snow on Cascade's Mount Baker Viewed from Space  | New photos taken from space show the significant snow loss this year atop Mount Baker, in Washington state. A camera on NASA's satellite Landsat 8 captured a photograph on July 9 showing snow cover of about 17 square miles (45 square kilometers) atop the mountain. A previous photo, taken July 3, 2013, by the same satellite, shows that the snow cover then extended 47 square miles (123 square kilometers).
| Read More » International Astronomical Union Meeting Kicks Off in Hawaii  | More than 3,500 astronomers and space scientists from 75 countries are expected to attend the XXIX (29th) International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly meeting, being held from Aug. 3 to Aug. 14.
| Read More » Do Not Pit Animal Welfare Against Starving Children (Op-Ed) Chetana Mirle is the director of Farm Animal Welfare at Humane Society International. Simply producing more food doesn't always mean that the people who need the food get it. I learned this well before I began my career protecting chickens, pigs and the other billions of animals raised and killed for food each year. Read More » Is Our Universe a Fake?  | Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator, writer and host of "Closer to Truth," a public television and multimedia program that features the world's leading thinkers exploring humanity's deepest questions. Kuhn is co-editor, with John Leslie, of "The Mystery of Existence: Why Is There Anything at All?" (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). Kuhn contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
| Read More » Primeval Procreation: Strawberrylike Animal Shows Oldest Reproduction  | Many scientists consider the creatures, called rangeomorphs, some of Earth's first complex animals, although it's impossible to know exactly what these organisms were, the researchers said. Rangeomorphs could grow up to 6.5 feet (2 meters) in length, but most were about 4 inches (10 centimeters) long. What's more, rangeomorphs don't appear to have been equipped with mouths, organs or the ability to move around, and the animals likely absorbed nutrients from the water, the researchers said.
| Read More » | |
