|  SpaceX rocket aiming to fly again next week after accident  | By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Privately-owned Space Exploration Technologies is aiming to return its repaired Falcon 9 rocket to flight next week, following a launch accident six months ago, the company said on Thursday. For its mission on Dec. 19, the California-based SpaceX plans to launch 11 small commercial communications satellites for ORBCOMM Inc, which provides machine-to-machine messaging services, such as between retailers and shipping containers. SpaceX, which has a backlog of 60 missions worth about $8 billion, has been grounded since June 28 when its 19th Falcon 9 rocket exploded minutes after launch.
| Read More » Lost Tomb of 'Suleiman the Magnificent' Possibly Unearthed  | The lost tomb of Suleiman the Magnificent, one of the greatest rulers of the Ottoman Empire, may have been unearthed in southern Hungary. In addition to his military prowess, Suleiman "the lawgiver" simplified Ottoman legal code and funded the construction of some of Istanbul's most gorgeous architecture.
| Read More » A new space race: satellites could test the world's climate vows  | By Barbara Lewis, Richard Valdmanis and David Stanway PARIS (Reuters) - Scientists from the United States, Japan, and China are racing to perfect satellite technology that could one day measure greenhouse gas emissions from space, potentially transforming the winner into the world's first climate cop. Monitoring a single country's net emissions from above could not only become an important tool to establish whether it had met its promises to slow global warming, a point of contention at climate talks in Paris, but also help emitters to pinpoint the sources of greenhouse gases more quickly and cheaply. "We know satellite technology is evolving so that there is an increasing ability to actually tell whether countries are telling the truth." Most estimates of greenhouse gas emissions are now based on calculations of energy use and other proxy data, rather than on-the-ground measurements, leaving a huge margin of error when nations submit their figures to the United Nations.
| Read More » Too early to use gene editing in embryos - scientist  | By Julie Steenhuysen WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of the scientists who discovered powerful tools for altering genes is not convinced the case has been made for using the technology on human sperm, eggs and embryos. "The tools are not ready," biologist Emmanuelle Charpentier said in an interview on Wednesday during a global meeting on the technology. Changes made in the genes of human reproductive cells, known as germline cells, would be passed along to future generations.
| Read More » Scientists coax computers to think like people By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For artificial intelligence and smart machines to really take off, computers are going to have to be able to think more like people, according to experts in the field. The research was published in the journal Science. Read More » Scientists coax computers to think like people By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For artificial intelligence and smart machines to really take off, computers are going to have to be able to think more like people, according to experts in the field. The research was published in the journal Science. Read More » After the genome, AstraZeneca taps 'secretome' for novel drugs  | By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - AstraZeneca is diving into the world of proteins secreted by cells - collectively known as the secretome - in the hunt for new drugs and better "cell factories" for making biotech medicines. The so-called secretome accounts for around one third of human proteins and the idea of mapping them all follows the decoding of the human genome in 2000, since when there has been a surge in scientific buzzwords ending in "ome". AstraZeneca hopes to get in on the ground floor of this opportunity through a three-year collaboration with the newly established Wallenberg Center for Protein Research in Sweden.
| Read More » Three International Space Station crewmen heading back to Earth  | By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Three International Space Station crew members got a jump on holiday travel, boarding a Russian Soyuz capsule on Friday for an express ride back to Earth. NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Japan's Kimiya Yui pulled away from the station at 4:49 a.m. EST (0949 GMT) as the orbital outpost soared 250 miles (400 km) over Earth, a NASA Television broadcast showed.
| Read More » How El Niño Made the Pacific a Hurricane Hotbed in 2015  | A record-breaking number of furious storms rocked the Pacific Ocean during the 2015 hurricane season, while the Atlantic Ocean stayed relatively quiet, likely because of El Niño, new research shows. El-Niño-influenced storms raged throughout the Pacific during this year's six-month hurricane season, which lasted from June 1 to Nov. 30. But the Atlantic spent its third consecutive year with below-average storm activity, the Earth Observatory reported.
| Read More » Female Mass Killers: Why They're So Rare As last week's shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, unfolded, the narrative seemed sickeningly familiar: A few moments of chaos ending in multiple deaths. Female mass killers are "so rare that it just hasn't been studied," said James Garbarino, a psychologist at Loyola University Chicago who has researched human development and violence. Women commit only about 10 percent to 13 percent of homicides n the United States, said Adam Lankford, a criminal justice professor and author of "The Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers" (St. Martin's Press, 2013). Read More » When Will Flu Season Start? It may be late fall, but there's not much flu going around in the United States so far this season, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And during the last week of November, 44 states reported minimal flu activity (the level of activity that's normal for the off season), while just two states (Oklahoma and South Carolina) reported increased, or moderate flu activity. No states reported high flu activity. Read More » High-School Cheerleading Injuries Are Often Severe High school cheerleaders have an overall rate of injuries that is lower than that of most other high school sports, but the injuries that do occur among cheerleaders tend to be more severe, a new study suggests. In the study of 22 high school sports, there were 17 sports that had higher injury rates than cheerleading, the researchers found. "Although overall injury rates are relatively low, cheerleading injuries may be more severe when they do occur," the researchers, from the Colorado School of Public Health and the University of Colorado, wrote in their study, published today (Dec. 10) in the journal Pediatrics. Read More » Cholesterol Levels Are a Problem for Many US Kids About 20 percent of U.S. children have problems with their cholesterol levels, such as high levels of "bad" cholesterol or low levels of "good" cholesterol, according to a new report. The report found that, overall, 7.4 percent of children ages 6 to 19 have high levels of total cholesterol, meaning their cholesterol levels are at or above 200 milligrams per deciliter. High cholesterol levels are more common in children who are obese, the report found. Read More » Why the 'Hoverboard' Scooter Is So Fly Some call them hoverboards; others call them smart or self-balancing scooters. But whatever you call the two-wheeled motorized vehicles you've probably seen rolling over sidewalks of late, one thing is certain: These futuristic gadgets are pretty cool. And the physics and mechanics that make them go are cool, too. Read More » Climate draft puts temperature limit out of reach: scientists  | By Nina Chestney and Alister Doyle PARIS (Reuters) - A deal to slow climate change being thrashed out in Paris fails to map out steep enough cuts in carbon dioxide emissions to limit global warming to the target of at least "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), scientists said on Friday. Negotiations on the draft agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for warming the planet and disrupting the climate, were extended by a day on Friday to Saturday to try to overcome stubborn divisions among the 195 countries taking part. The draft text, released on Thursday and subject to revision, also proposes that emissions peak "as soon as possible", with rapid cuts thereafter towards achieving "greenhouse gas emissions neutrality in the second half of the century".
| Read More » Climate draft puts temperature limit out of reach - scientists  | By Nina Chestney and Alister Doyle PARIS (Reuters) - A deal to slow climate change being thrashed out in Paris fails to map out steep enough cuts in carbon dioxide emissions to limit global warming to the target of at least "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), scientists said on Friday. Negotiations on the draft agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for warming the planet and disrupting the climate, were extended by a day on Friday to Saturday to try to overcome stubborn divisions among the 195 countries taking part. The draft text, released on Thursday and subject to revision, also proposes that emissions peak "as soon as possible", with rapid cuts thereafter towards achieving "greenhouse gas emissions neutrality in the second half of the century".
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