Today's Reuters Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
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What sank the Titanic? Scientists point to the moon
Tue,6 Mar 2012 12:30 PM PST
Reuters -  SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - A century after the Titanic disaster, scientists have found an unexpected culprit for the sinking: the moon. Anyone who knows history or has seen the blockbuster movies knows that the cause of the transatlantic liner's accident 100 years ago next month was that it hit an iceberg. "But the lunar connection may explain how an unusually large number of icebergs got into the path of the Titanic," said Donald Olson, a Texas State University physicist whose team of forensic astronomers examined the moon's role. ...
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What sank the Titanic? Scientists point to the moon
Tue,6 Mar 2012 10:13 AM PST
Reuters - SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - A century after the Titanic disaster, scientists have found an unexpected culprit of the crash: the moon. Anyone who knows history or blockbuster movies knows that the cause of the ocean liner's accident 100 years ago next month was that it hit an iceberg. "But the lunar connection may explain how an unusually large number of icebergs got into the path of the Titanic," said Donald Olson, a Texas State University physicist whose team of forensic astronomers examined the moon's role. ... Full Story | Top |
Alien invasion a threat to Antarctic ecosystem
Tue,6 Mar 2012 05:23 AM PST
Reuters -  SYDNEY (REUTERS) - In the pristine frozen continent of Antarctica scientists fear an alien invasion -- not from outer space, but carried in people's pockets and bags. Seeds and plants accidentally brought to Antarctica by tourists and scientists may introduce alien plant species which could threaten the survival of native plants in the finely balanced ecosystem. ...
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Four-legged "Cheetah" robot sets new speed record
Mon,5 Mar 2012 03:59 PM PST
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A four-legged robot known as the Cheetah lived up to its name on Monday, setting a new land speed record for legged robots by running at 18 mph on a treadmill at a laboratory in Massachusetts, its developer said. The Cheetah, being developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from the military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is part of a program aimed at achieving theoretical and experimental advances in the science of robotics. ... Full Story | Top |
Scientists see rise in tornado-creating conditions
Mon,5 Mar 2012 03:20 PM PST
Reuters -  NEW YORK (Reuters) - When at least 80 tornadoes rampaged across the United States, from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico, last Friday, it was more than is typically observed during the entire month of March, tracking firm AccuWeather.com reported on Monday. According to some climate scientists, such earlier-than-normal outbreaks of tornadoes, which typically peak in the spring, will become the norm as the planet warms. ...
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Scientists see rise in tornado-creating conditions
Mon,5 Mar 2012 03:18 PM PST
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters) - When at least 80 tornadoes rampaged across the United States, from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico, last Friday, it was more than is typically observed during the entire month of March, tracking firm AccuWeather.com reported on Monday. According to some climate scientists, such earlier-than-normal outbreaks of tornadoes, which typically peak in the spring, will become the norm as the planet warms. ... Full Story | Top |
UK scientists to help satellites dodge sun storms
Fri,2 Mar 2012 10:54 AM PST
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists have developed a system to help protect navigation and communications satellites from potentially devastating solar storms, they said on Friday. Services spanning everything from mobile phones to sophisticated weaponry increasingly depend on global positioning system, or GPS, technology. However damage by a massive burst of solar energy could knock out GPS satellites and send them veering into the paths of other craft or scramble their communications. ...
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DNA data helps to flesh out "Otzi" the Alpine iceman
Fri,2 Mar 2012 05:07 AM PST
Reuters -  MILAN (Reuters) - The first complete genome-sequencing of "Otzi," Italy's prehistoric iceman, is revealing a wealth of details about the man who roamed the Alps 5,300 years ago and could unleash a frenzy of activity among scientists thanks to open data. Over the last 20 years, scientists have painstakingly collected data from the stomach, bowels and teeth of the 45-year old man, who was found sticking out of a glacier by German climbers in 1991 in the Tyrolean Alps on the Austro-Italian border. ...
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Loss of Arctic sea ice may lead to mercury deposits: NASA study
Thu,1 Mar 2012 05:08 PM PST
Reuters -  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Significant declines in perennial Arctic sea ice over the past decade may be intensifying a chemical reaction that leads to deposits of toxic mercury, a NASA-led study showed on Thursday. The study found that thick, perennial Arctic sea ice was being replaced by a thinner and saltier ice that releases bromine into the air when it interacts with sunlight and cold, said Son Nghiem, a NASA researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. ...
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Oceans' acidic shift may be fastest in 300 million years
Thu,1 Mar 2012 02:40 PM PST
Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's oceans are turning acidic at what could be the fastest pace of any time in the past 300 million years, even more rapidly than during a monster emission of planet-warming carbon 56 million years ago, scientists said on Thursday. Looking back at that bygone warm period in Earth's history could offer help in forecasting the impact of human-spurred climate change, researchers said of a review of hundreds of studies of ancient climate records published in the journal Science. ... Full Story | Top |
CERN to tap new Europe cloud computing project
Thu,1 Mar 2012 10:33 AM PST
Reuters - GENEVA (Reuters) - Three key research centers and a consortium of Internet companies said on Thursday they would work together on a European cloud computing platform to handle the continent's rapidly growing demand for computer capacity. A statement from CERN, the Geneva-based particle physics organization, said the platform -- dubbed "Helix Nebula-the Science Cloud" -- would be made available to government bodies and industry after a two-year pilot phase. ... Full Story | Top |
DNA data helps to flesh out "Otzi" the Alpine iceman
Thu,1 Mar 2012 08:15 AM PST
Reuters -  MILAN (Reuters) - The first complete genome-sequencing of "Otzi," Italy's prehistoric iceman, is revealing a wealth of details about the man who roamed the Alps 5,300 years ago and could unleash a frenzy of activity among scientists thanks to open data. Over the last 20 years, scientists have painstakingly collected data from the stomach, bowels and teeth of the 45-year old man, who was found sticking out of a glacier by German climbers in 1991 in the Tyrolean Alps on the Austro-Italian border. ...
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Factbox: Neurotechnologies in spotlight of UK ethics review
Thu,1 Mar 2012 06:02 AM PST
Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which examines ethical issues raised by new developments in biology and medicine, launched a consultation on Thursday on the ethics of new technologies and devices that intervene in the human brain. The three main areas of the group's focus are brain-computer interfaces, neurostimulation and neural stem cell therapy. Here are some details about each area of research and how it is being explored. * Brain computer interfaces (BCIs) BCIs measure and analyze a person's brain signals and convert them into an output such as movement. ... Full Story | Top |
Super-human brain technology sparks ethics debate
Thu,1 Mar 2012 06:02 AM PST
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - A British ethics group has launched a debate on the ethical dilemmas posed by new technologies that tap into the brain and could bring super-human strength, highly enhanced concentration or thought-controlled weaponry. With the prospect of future conflicts between armies controlling weapons with their minds, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics launched a consultation on Thursday to consider the risks of blurring the lines between humans and machines. "Intervening in the brain has always raised both hopes and fears in equal measure. ...
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Total recall: Japanese robot finds lost things
Tue,28 Feb 2012 06:42 PM PST
Reuters - TOKYO (Reuters) - Forgot where you put your glasses? A Japanese robot can find them for you, and guide you to where they are. The red and white robot, named EMIEW2, is about the size of a six-year-old child and glides everywhere on wheels at the bottom of its legs, its round, white face with two black eyes vaguely reminiscent of the iconic "Hello Kitty." But the robot, the latest version of one that debuted in 2005 and developed by electronics firm Hitachi, is more than just another cute face. ... Full Story | Top |
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