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Sunday, January 17, 2016

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SpaceX rocket to launch climate satellite, re-try ocean landing

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is poised to launch from California on Sunday to put a key climate-monitoring satellite into orbit, then turn around and attempt to land on a platform in the ocean. Liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base is scheduled for 10:42 a.m. PST (1842 GMT). After sending the U.S.- and European-owned Jason-3 satellite on its way to orbit, the rocket's first stage will separate, turn around and attempt to touch down on a platform floating in the Pacific Ocean, said officials with privately-held SpaceX, also known as Space Exploration Technologies.

SpaceX rocket blasts off from California with science satellite: NASA

By Gene Blevins VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (Reuters) - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from California on Sunday to put a climate-monitoring satellite into orbit, NASA said. Technology entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX then planned to attempt to land the rocket on a barge in the Pacific Ocean, which would mark its second milestone a month after it nailed a spaceflight first with a successful ground landing in Florida. (Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by Alan Crosby)

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Saturday, January 16, 2016

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SpaceX success launches space startups to new heights

By Heather Somerville SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - SpaceX's successful landing of a reusable rocket booster last month opens a new frontier for commercial space startups by offering tremendous cost savings and attracting venture capitalists who once shied away from spatial ventures. Space startups include nano-satellite makers, earth-imaging and weather-tracking technology developers, and ventures with ambitious plans to mine asteroids. If this fledgling industry can reuse rockets, that will save money and accelerate the pace of launches, enabling startups to more quickly test and update their technology, and replace old satellites more frequently - all critical for growing revenue.

Largest Giraffe Relative Found

"This is certainly the largest giraffid [a member of the giraffe family] that ever existed," said study lead author Christopher Basu, a doctoral student in the Structure and Motion Laboratory at the Royal Veterinary College in London.

Real Heavy Metal: Fans Want Motörhead Singer on Periodic Table

Motörhead fans still mourning the death of the band's singer, songwriter and bassist, Ian 'Lemmy' Kilmister, in December are seeking commemoration for the rock icon in an unusual location — the periodic table. A petition launched on Change.org by John Wright of York, United Kingdom, proposed "Lemmium" as a name for element 115, quickly gathering thousands of signatures. The element holds the cumbersome temporary working name "ununpentium" and the temporary symbol Uup, according to a statement issued by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) on Dec. 30, 2015.

Cruz's Birthplace Debated: Here's Where Most US Presidents Were Born

At the Republican debates last night, Donald Trump argued that fellow Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz might be ineligible to be U.S. president, given that the Constitution requires the president to be a "natural born citizen" of the country. One man, Houston attorney Newton Schwartz Sr., has even filed a suit against Cruz, aiming to settle the question before the primaries or party conventions get under way, Bloomberg Business reported. Whatever your opinion may be, it is true that all of the presidents to date have been born in one of the 50 U.S. states.

A Look at Alex: NASA Satellite Spies Oddball January Hurricane

It's rare to see a hurricane in January, but Hurricane Alex formed yesterday (Jan. 14) in the Atlantic Ocean — well after the end of the hurricane season — and a NASA satellite caught a glimpse of the menacing storm. It marks the first time a hurricane has formed in the Atlantic in the month of January since 1938, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. NASA's Terra satellite spied the hurricane yesterday as it was developing.

West Africa Is Not 'Ebola Free' After All, New Case Shows

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is not over — just one day after the region was declared "Ebola-free," a new case of the virus was confirmed in Sierra Leone. The new case involved a 22-year-old woman, who was found dead in northern Sierra Leone and tested positive for the disease today (Jan. 15), according to The New York Times. Just yesterday, the World Health Organization declared the end of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, because the three hardest-hit countries in the region — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — had not reported a new Ebola case for at least 42 days.

Butchered Mammoth Suggests Humans Lived in Siberia 45,000 Years Ago

The slashed and punctured bones of a woolly mammoth suggest that humans lived in the far northern reaches of Siberia earlier than scientists had previously thought, a new study finds. Before the surprising discovery, researchers thought that humans lived in the freezing Siberian Arctic no earlier than about 30,000 to 35,000 years ago. Now, the newly studied mammoth carcass suggests that people lived in the area, where they butchered the likes of this giant animal about 45,000 years ago.

Tapping the Human Microbiome (Kavli Hangout)

Late last year, 48 scientists from 50 U.S. institutions proposed the "Unified Microbiome Initiative," a national effort to decipher the nature, and applications, of microbiomes, ecosystems of microscopic life forms such as bacteria, viruses, archaea and fungi. Scientists can now identify microbes by the organisms' DNA, and have thereby discovered that microbiomes are far more diverse than anyone ever imagined. Each microbiome potentially includes hundreds of thousands of microbial species, all interacting with one another.

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Friday, January 15, 2016

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Ebola Outbreak Declared Over in West Africa

West Africa is now free of Ebola, marking an end to the devastating epidemic that plagued the region for two years. The three hardest-hit countries — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — have not had any new Ebola cases for at least 42 days, according to a statement from the World Health Organization released today (Jan. 14). Health officials typically wait 42 days to declare a country Ebola-free, because this is twice as long as the 21-day incubation period of the virus (the time it takes for a person infected with the virus to show symptoms).

Stephen Hawking: Black Holes Have 'Hair'

Black holes may sport a luxurious head of "hair" made up of ghostly, zero-energy particles, says a new hypothesis proposed by Stephen Hawking and other physicists. The new paper, which was published online Jan. 5 in the preprint journal arXiv, proposes that at least some of the information devoured by a black hole is stored in these electric hairs. Still, the new proposal doesn't prove that all the information that enters a black hole is preserved.

In an Oil Boom, Reason to Mourn 55 Mph Speed Limit (Op-Ed)

In December, U.S. lawmakers voted to end the nation's decades-long ban on the export of crude oil, which was passed to limit American dependence on foreign oil. The embargo drove up the price of oil. With the aim of achieving energy independence, the U.S. Congress banned the export of crude oil and created the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, an emergency supply of petroleum to weather shocks in the oil market.

Without Basic Knowledge, Innovation Fails (Op-Ed)

Vikram Jandhyala is the vice provost for innovation at the University of Washington. Understanding how innovation actually happens is one of the most intricate, and important, intellectual conversations occurring in technology circles, and it's clear that basic knowledge — long ignored — plays a central role. Basic knowledge can come from the social sciences, health sciences, policy studies, law, social work, anthropology, and critically, business and finance.

Growing vegetables via smartphone

By Ben Gruber LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - Growing your own produce just got really easy. This is a farm cube - a fully enclosed ecosystem capable of growing vegetables indoors. "In this one (Farm Cube), the one cycle, around six weeks, 200 pieces or 100 pieces depending on different vegetables," said Jack Ting, CEO of Taipei-based OPCOM, developers of the automated farming technology. Seedlings are loaded into the cube. Not home and worried about your farm cube?

NASA adds commercial mini-shuttle to space station supply fleet

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA hired a third company to fly cargo to the International Space Station, adding an innovative space plane built by Sierra Nevada Corp to the fleet, the U.S. space agency said on Thursday. Privately owned Sierra Nevada will join incumbents Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital ATK in ferrying supplies to the space station beginning in late 2019. Terms of the contracts were not immediately disclosed, but NASA previously said it intended to spend about $1 billion to $1.4 billion on the program annually.

Ancient people conquered the Arctic at least 45,000 years ago

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The frozen carcass of a woolly mammoth found in Siberia with unmistakable signs of spear wounds is providing evidence that people inhabited Arctic regions thousands of years earlier than previously known. Russian scientists on Thursday said the male mammoth excavated from a bluff on Yenisei Bay on the Arctic Ocean was killed by hunters 45,000 years ago, providing the earliest indication of the presence of humans in the Arctic.

NASA adds commercial mini-shuttle to station supply fleet

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA hired a third company to fly cargo to the International Space Station, adding an innovative space plane built by Sierra Nevada Corp to the commercial fleet, the U.S. space agency said on Thursday. Privately owned Sierra Nevada will join incumbents Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, and Orbital ATK in ferrying supplies to the space station beginning in late 2019, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said. NASA estimates it will need about four cargo runs per year, but expects to spend "significantly" less than $14 billion overall, station program manager Kirk Shireman told reporters on a conference call.

Scientists spot brightest supernova yet, outshines Milky Way

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Astronomers have discovered the brightest star explosion ever, a super supernova that easily outshines our entire Milky Way.

Future Diabetes Treatment? Human Skin Cells Coaxed to Make Insulin

Human skin cells can be reprogrammed to produce the hormone insulin, which could one day help patients better control their diabetes. Additionally, the researchers noted, the cells are not completely identical to the human pancreatic cells that normally produce insulin in the body. What's more, although the cells could potentially help people with type 2 diabetes someday, their current design would not help people with type 1 diabetes, which is an autoimmune disorder, said Matthias Hebrok, director of the University of California, San Francisco Diabetes Center.

Hidden Plague? New Theory on How Disease Spread So Perilously

One reason the plague was able to spread so massively across Europe during the Middle Ages may have been that the bacteria that caused the disease lay hidden, in some unknown animal reservoir, for centuries, a new study reports. In the study, researchers in Germany hypothesize that the bacteria Yersinia pestis, which causes plague and killed millions of people, may have survived in Europe in an unknown host during the second plague pandemic, which lasted from the 14th to the 17th century. The idea came after the researchers analyzed the DNA from the skeletal remains of 30 plague victims who were buried at two grave sites in Germany.

Wearable Devices Move Toward Disease Treatment

For example, a device called Quell, which attaches to the upper calf, could help reduce chronic pain for some people, according to the company. The device stimulates nerves in the leg with an electrical current, which, in turn, triggers a response from the central nervous system that can block pain signals anywhere in the body, the company says. The company says Quell automatically adjusts the strength of the current during a therapy session, and it has a sleep mode that automatically starts a session every 2 hours during the night.

Virus Linked to Birth Defects Requires Action, Doctors Say

The rapid spread of a disease called Zika virus urgently requires attention, two leading researchers say. Zika virus is the most recent in a list of viruses that were formerly confined to remote niches of the world but are now expanding their reach into the Northern Hemisphere. Much about these viruses is still poorly understood, wrote Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and Dr. David Morens, senior scientific advisor for the NIAID, in an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday (Jan. 14).

China to land probe on dark side of moon in 2018: Xinhua

China plans to land the first probe ever on the dark side of the moon in 2018, marking another milestone in its ambitious space program, the official Xinhua news agency reported. China has launched a new round of work focused on lunar exploration, coming about two years after it made the first "soft landing" on the moon since 1976 with the Chang'e-3 craft and its Jade Rabbit rover. Previous spacecraft have seen the far side of the moon, that is never visible from earth, but none has landed on it.

Why Are Venomous Sea Snakes Washing Up on California Beaches?

A beachgoer got quite the slithery surprise when a 20-inch-long (50 centimeters) venomous sea snake washed ashore at Coronado Dog Beach near San Diego Tuesday (Jan. 12). The yellow-bellied sea snake (Pelamis platura) is very uncommon in California, but three (including this latest sighting) have washed ashore in Southern California in the past few months. The beachgoer who found the yellow-bellied sea snake Tuesday alerted lifeguards to the serpent at around 2:30 p.m. local time, according to a statement from the city of Coronado.

122-Foot Titanosaur: Staggeringly Big Dino Barely Fits into Museum

An incredibly long-necked dinosaur, with leg bones the size of couches, is so massive that is has invaded not one, but two rooms at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. The enormous titanosaur — an herbivorous beast that weighed 70 tons (64 metric tons) when alive some 100 million years ago — is the newest permanent exhibit to join the museum.

Magnetic Device Lets Smartphones Test Your Blood

Smartphones equipped with portable devices that magnetically levitate cells might one day help diagnose diseases in the home, clinic or lab, researchers say. Nowadays, smartphones are incredibly powerful portable computers that include handy devices such as multimegapixel cameras, and they can be found in both developing and developed countries. Increasingly, researchers are exploring ways for smartphones to be used not only for posting selfies and playing video games, but also to help save lives by rapidly performing medical tests anywhere there are smartphones — that is, virtually anywhere around the world.

Scientist: No known antidote for botched drug test in France

The chief neuroscientist at a hospital in Rennes, where a botched drug trial has left six people hospitalized, says there's no known antidote to the experimental drug they were testing. Professor Gilles ...

Ex-army major becomes first British astronaut to spacewalk

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Tim Peake became the first astronaut representing Britain to walk in space when he left the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday to fix a power station problem, generating huge interest back in his homeland. Peake and a NASA crewmate were scheduled to spend more than six hours outside the station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth. "A proud moment," said Peake, as he floated outside the airlock on a mission that included preparing the outpost for new commercial space taxis.

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