|  Bezos' space company aims for passenger flights in 2018  | Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin expects to begin crewed test flights of its reusable suborbital New Shepard vehicle next year and begin flying paying passengers in 2018, Bezos told reporters on Tuesday. Bezos' remarks, made during the first ever media tour of the Blue Origin manufacturing facility, marked the first time the billionaire founder of Amazon.com had put a target date on the start of the commercial space flights Blue Origin is developing. Blue Origin's first reusable rocket was lost in a test flight in April 2015, though the capsule parachuted safely back to the ground.
| Read More » Mysterious extinction of prehistoric marine reptiles explained  | By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of the enduring mysteries of paleontology, the demise of a highly successful group of dolphin-like marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs that flourished in Earth's seas for more than 150 million years, may finally have been solved. Scientists on Tuesday attributed their extinction 94 million years ago to the combination of global warming and their own failure to evolve swiftly enough. The research, the most comprehensive analysis to date of their disappearance, undercut previous notions that ichthyosaurs had been in decline for tens of millions of years and had been out-competed by other predators such as the fearsome ocean-going lizards called mosasaurs that were just arriving on the scene.
| Read More » Clouds over Indonesia obscure total eclipse of the sun for many  | By Darren Whiteside and Kanupriya Kapoor PALEMBANG, Indonesia (Reuters) - A solar eclipse enthralled Indonesia on Wednesday but clouds spoiled the view for many skywatchers in the east of the archipelago, the only part of the country that had the opportunity to see it in totality. In Palembang city on the western island of Sumatra where the total eclipse should have been visible, cloudy skies and smog obscured the view for many of the thousands of people who gathered outside shortly after daybreak. ...
| Read More » Going places: machine beats top Go player in another AI milestone  | SEOUL (Reuters) - Google's AlphaGo computer program on Wednesday won the first of a series of five matches against one of the world's best players of the complex board game, Go, marking a new milestone in the development of artificial intelligence (AI). South Korean professional Go player Lee Sedol, an 18-time international title winner, conceded defeat in a match broadcast live, with one Youtube stream watched by tens of thousands of people worldwide, and domestic cable gave frequent updates. ...
| Read More » 'Overdosing' on Exercise May Be Toxic to the Heart Extreme exercise may be toxic to your heart, according to a provocative review of studies set to appear in an upcoming issue of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology. Pushing your body to the max day after day can stress your heart and raise your risk for a type of abnormal heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation, or A-fib, which ultimately can lead to heart failure or a stroke, according to the review, which analyzed 12 studies on A-fib in athletes and endurance runners. But before you fall off your sofa laughing at the ambitious among us, note that not exercising at all is far worse for your heart than overdoing it, doctors emphasize. Read More » Inhaled 'Poppers' Can Lead to Vision Problems A 52-year-old man in Scotland who inhaled recreational drugs called poppers developed vision problems that have lasted for months, and the impairment may even become permanent, according to a new report of his case. Although the man has since recovered his vision to some extent, it remained reduced in both eyes at his last follow-up appointment about two months ago, said Dr. Joshua Luis, one of the doctors who treated the man and co-authored the report. "He may not be able to read as fine print as he used to, but it shouldn't have too much of an impact on day-to-day life," Luis told Live Science. Read More » Man's Routine Dental Procedure Causes Life-Threatening Infection A man in Pennsylvania developed a rare and potentially life-threatening infection after a routine dental exam and teeth cleaning, according to a new report of his case. The 57-year-old man recovered from the infection after treatment, said the doctors who treated the man and wrote the report. The type of infection that the man had is very rare, and the chances of getting this type of infection during a dental procedure are very low, said Dr. Faton Bytyci, a resident physician at Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown, Pennsylvania, who treated the man and co-authored the report. Read More » Shades of Luke Skywalker? Bionic Fingertip Lets Amputee Feel Textures  | Using a bionic fingertip, an amputee for the first time has been able to feel rough and smooth textures in real-time, as though the fingertip were naturally connected to his hand. After Luke Skywalker got his hand cut off during a duel with Darth Vader in "Star Wars," the young Jedi received an artificial hand that helped him both grip and feel again. Doctors immediately amputated the appendage after Sørensen was brought to a hospital.
| Read More » Apple vs. FBI: What's Really Going On? Apple is embroiled in a battle with the FBI over an iPhone that was used by one of the shooters involved in the December attack that killed 14 and wounded 22 in San Bernardino, California. The two sides are involved in an ongoing court case over Apple's refusal to comply with a Feb. 16 order from a federal judge that demanded that the tech giant build custom software to help the FBI break into an iPhone 5c given to slain attacker Syed Rizwan Farook by his employer. Here's what you need to know about Apple's fight with the FBI. Read More » Monkeys Move Wheelchairs Using Just Their Thoughts  | Monkeys equipped with wireless brain implants were able to control robotic wheelchairs using only their thoughts, according to a new study. The brain waves of two rhesus macaques were used to direct motor commands on a motorized wheelchair. The monkeys were initially trained to navigate the wheelchair by simply watching it move, the researchers said.
| Read More » Israeli placental cell therapy could cure radiation sickness  | By Elana Ringler Israeli biotech firm Pluristem Therapeutics said it hopes its anti-radiation therapy will protect Fukushima workers decommissioning nuclear reactors and save lives in the future if ever a similar catastrophe occurs. The Haifa-based company said they have developed a placenta-based cell therapy injection that can fully cure patients with multiple organ failure caused by high radiation exposure. Pluristem Therapeutics' Vice President of Medical and Clinical Affairs Dr. Esther Lukasiewicz Hagai said cells grown from placentas donated by women who had undergone a C-section, are harvested to create a cocktail of therapeutic proteins which combat potentially lethal damage to the lungs, skin, bone marrow and gastrointestinal tract caused by radiation exposure. "We've been investigating the placenta for the last decade and we have discovered that the placenta cells have unique properties that can help the body to recover after exposure to high level of radiation," Lukasiewicz Hagai said.
| Read More » NASA plans to fix Mars spacecraft leak then launch in 2018  | NASA plans to repair a Mars spacecraft that was grounded in December because of a leak in its primary science instrument, putting the mission back on track for another launch attempt in 2018, the U.S. space agency said on Wednesday. The spacecraft, a satellite known as InSight, was designed to study the deep interior of Mars, information that will help scientists figure out how the planet, and other rocky planets such as Earth, formed and evolved. The space agency said it was reviewing how much the repair would cost, but the project's lead scientist last week estimated the price tag would be about $150 million above the $675 million already budgeted.
| Read More » Could New Planets Form Around Old Stars, Too? (Video, Images)  | The newly released image, which was captured by the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) in Chile, shows a dusty disk around an old double star called IRAS 08544-4431, which lies about 4,000 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation of Vela (The Sails). "Our observations and modeling open a new window to study the physics of these disks, as well as stellar evolution in double stars," study co-author Hans Van Winckel, of the Instituut voor Sterrenkunde in Belgium, said in a statement. The scientists used several VLTI telescopes, an associated instrument called the Precision Integrated-Optics Near-infrared Imaging ExpeRiment (PIONIER) and a new high-speed infrared detector to take the photo.
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