It seems there’s little the nation’s political parties can agree on these days. Indeed some say the country hasn’t been so divided since the War Between the States. But if any topic can build bi-partisan support as we approach the third decade of the new millennium, it’s Alzheimer’s disease. We all agree we hate it;
BERLIN (Reuters) – Complex organic molecules have been discovered originating from one of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus, adding to its potential to support life, researchers said on Wednesday. FILE PHOTO: One of the last looks at Saturn and its main rings as captured by Cassini. Images taken October 28, 2016 and released September 11, 2017. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space
ESO/A. Fitzsimmons Astronomer Alan Fitzsimmons contemplates the Southern Sky. There’s a recent paper that claims we could very well be the only civilization in the universe. As Ethan Siegel has pointed out, the paper is more speculation than science, but it has generated a lot of buzz in the media, often with sad laments over
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The reddish cigar-shaped object called ‘Oumuamua spotted last year tumbling through space is a comet, scientists said on Wednesday, solving the mystery over how to classify the first interstellar object found passing through our solar system. This artist’s impression shows the first interstellar asteroid, `Oumuamua as it passes through the solar system
Giving children music lessons won’t just introduce them to a world of rhythm and melody – it could also significantly improve their language skills. While numerous studies have shown that learning an instrument can impact things like language ability, it wasn’t understood if this was a side effect of a general boost to cognitive skills,
The first known interstellar visitor to our Solar System, ‘Oumuamua, which buzzed past the Sun last September, has proven evasive to define. First it was a comet. Then it was an asteroid. Then it was maybe both. Now a new team of researchers led by the European Space Agency has delivered their verdict: ‘Oumuamua, according
For the past 235 years, a 2.31 metre (7 foot 7 inch) tall skeleton has stood overlooking shelves of pickled cancers, malformed limbs and other assorted medical curiosities in London’s Hunterian Museum. Following a statement by the Royal College of Surgeons, it’s possible those bones might at last be laid to rest on the murky
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Arianespace expects its satellite launches in 2018 to fall short of a record target, hobbled partly by a data glitch that sent a rocket off course earlier this year, the chief executive of the European company told Reuters on Wednesday. FILE PHOTO: A replica of the rocket Ariane 5 is seen at
A pair of swans in Austria have been forcibly removed from the lake they called home after a series of violent, escalating attacks to defend their nest from intrusive humans. The twist in this case is the swans weren’t biological parents, but appear to have been two gay male swans who had formed an inseparable
One of the world’s leading plasma research facilities just broke a new record, showing we really are getting closer to the wonderful goal of fusion power – a virtually limitless supply of clean energy. Experiments on the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator – a device that uses magnets to confine clouds of plasma (hot, charged gas) –
The plumes of salty water shooting out of Saturn’s ocean moon Enceladus have just ponied up one of the most significant ingredients for habitability: large organic molecules rich in carbon. It’s a discovery that suggests a thin, organic rich film atop the oceanic water table – very similar to the sea surface microlayer here on
Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, has long proselytized for the cause of interplanetary colonization. If Earth gets whacked by a giant space rock, a cataclysmic solar storm cripples human electronics, or we cleanse ourselves from the planet in nuclear fire (accidentally or otherwise), it could help to have a backup civilisation on a world
TOKYO (Reuters) – A Japanese space probe named after a falcon arrived at an asteroid 300 million kilometers from Earth on Wednesday after a three-and-a half year journey on a mission to seek the origins of life. Asteroid Ryugu is photographed by the ONC-T which is equipped on Hayabusa 2 probe after a journey of
Scientists studying one of the fastest-warming regions of the global ocean say changes in this region are so sudden and vast that in effect, it will soon be another limb of the Atlantic Ocean, rather than a characteristically icy Arctic sea. The northern Barents Sea, to the north of Scandinavia and east of the remote
Scientists have recently discovered and described 29 cool new species of wasp, and their life-cycle is enough to give you nightmares for weeks. Here’s how it goes. Parasitoid wasps lay their eggs in other animals so that their larvae will have something to snack on when they hatch. Oftentimes, this means that the ‘hosts’ are
(photo by Andre Chung for The Washington Post via Getty Images) Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), the brain tingling sensation millions of people seek out online, may be more than just a pleasant feeling. A new study finds that it also provides physiological and stress-reducing benefits on par with mindfulness meditation – at least for
, via Wikimedia Commons” align=”” width=”601″] A group of T-cells (green and red) encapsulate a cancer cell (blue, center). The T-cells kill the cancer cell by attaching and spreading over the cancerous cell. Special compounds contained in the T-cell (shown in red) are used to exterminate the cancer cell. Timunity therapeutics is a biotech start-up
Just how cold can it get on Earth? Colder than we thought, apparently. A new study of satellite data reports that valleys in Antarctica’s ice sheets can reach close to minus 100 degrees Celsius (or minus 148 degrees Fahrenheit). Very chilly then, and significantly below the previous record of minus 93 degrees Celsius (minus 135
This trail among New Mexico’s highest peaks is off limits starting June 27. The threat of an extraordinary wildfire season in the southwestern U.S. is forcing land managers to take extraordinary measures to try and limit the potential for catastrophe. So as of 6 a.m. Mountain Time Wednesday, the southernmost stretches of the long Rocky
Ordinary matter may only make up 5 percent of the mass of the Universe, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we know where it all is. In fact, for 20 years, astronomers have been trying to figure out why there isn’t as much as there should be. Now an international team has put their heads together