Today's Reuters Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
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Canada extends search for doomed 1845-46 Arctic expedition
Thu,23 Aug 2012 02:27 PM PDT
Reuters - OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian government said on Thursday it was extending its four-year search for two ships from the 1845-46 Franklin expedition to the Arctic, an ill-fated journey that may have led to cannibalism among the desperate crew. Divers and archeologists have been trying since 2008 to find the British ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, which were seeking the fabled Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans when they became stuck in ice. Sir John Franklin and his 128-member crew all died and the ships vanished. ... Full Story | Top |
Spaceship builder setting up shop in Florida
Thu,23 Aug 2012 10:32 AM PDT
Reuters - CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Aug 23 - XCOR Aerospace, one of a handful of U.S. firms developing suborbital spaceships, plans to build its vehicles and fly tourists, researchers and commercial payloads from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, officials announced on Thursday. The privately owned firm, currently based in Mojave, California, is developing a two-seat suborbital space plane called Lynx that is expected to debut by early 2013. The company expects to fly four times daily, at a cost of $95,000 per person. ... Full Story | Top |
Mars rover Curiosity aces first test drive
Wed,22 Aug 2012 06:10 PM PDT
Reuters -  CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took a 16-minute drive on Wednesday, its first since reaching the Red Planet to search for habitats that could have supported microbial life. The $2.5-billion, two-year mission, NASA's first astrobiology initiative since the 1970s-era Viking probes, kicked off on August 6, with a risky, but successful landing on at a site NASA has named "Bradbury Landing," a nod to the late science fiction author and space aficionado Ray Bradbury. ...
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Researchers identify gene that improves rice yields in poor soil
Wed,22 Aug 2012 04:50 PM PDT
Reuters - HONG KONG (Reuters) - A gene that raises rice yields by enhancing root growth and nutrient absorption in low quality soils has been identified in a species of rice in India and successfully introduced into other rice varieties, researchers reported on Thursday. Scientists and rice breeders have known for years that Kasalath rice is unusually efficient at nutrient absorption, but only now have they succeeded in identifying the gene responsible for this important trait. ... Full Story | Top |
Mars rover Curiosity gears up for Wednesday test drive
Tue,21 Aug 2012 04:14 PM PDT
Reuters -  CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, dispatched to study if the Red Planet could have hosted life, will take its first test drive on Wednesday. The one-ton, nuclear-powered robotic geologist, which landed inside a Martian crater on August 6, will get instructions for a 30-minute drive, mission manager Michael Watkins told reporters on a conference call Tuesday. Later in the day, Curiosity will drive about 10 feet, turn its wheels, then drive back to its landing site, ending up at a 90-degree angle from where it touched down inside Gale Crater. ...
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Spacewalkers prepare station for new Russian lab
Mon,20 Aug 2012 07:06 PM PDT
Reuters - CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Two veteran cosmonauts sailed through a six-hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Monday to prepare the orbital outpost for a new module and better shield its living quarters against small meteorite and debris impacts, officials said. Station commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko opened the hatch on the station's airlock at 11:37 a.m. EDT to begin a spacewalk to relocate a construction crane, install debris shields and release a small satellite into orbit. ... Full Story | Top |
Arctic sea ice likely to hit record low next week
Mon,20 Aug 2012 04:41 PM PDT
Reuters -  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is likely to shrink to a record small size sometime next week, and then keep on melting, a scientist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said on Monday. "A new daily record ... would be likely by the end of August," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the data center, which monitors ice in the Arctic and elsewhere. "Chances are it will cross the previous record while we're still in sea ice retreat. ...
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New NASA lander to help scientists study how Mars formed
Mon,20 Aug 2012 04:27 PM PDT
Reuters -  CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's Mars Curiosity rover is going to get some company. The U.S. space agency on Monday selected a small Mars lander for a hotly contested small planetary science mission to launch in 2016. The point of the mission is to help figure out how Mars formed, information that scientists say will give them insight into how rocky bodies like the Earth were created. ...
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NASA's science rover Curiosity zaps first Martian rock
Sun,19 Aug 2012 04:08 PM PDT
Reuters -  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Mars rover Curiosity zapped its first Martian rock on Sunday with a high-powered laser gun designed to analyze its mineral composition, and scientists declared their target practice a success. The robotic science lab took aim at the fist-sized stone with its laser beam and shot the rock with 30 pulses over a 10-second period, NASA said in a statement issued from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles. ...
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Eyes in the sky spy on threatened jungles
Sun,19 Aug 2012 02:03 PM PDT
Reuters - SINGAPORE (Reuters) - In the two minutes it takes to read this story, an area the size of 60 football pitches will have been clear-cut by illegal loggers globally, according to Chatham House, an independent policy institute in London. Catching the loggers and their bosses has long been a problem because of corruption, lax law enforcement and limited ability to detect the crime quickly. Satellite monitoring is changing that. ... Full Story | Top |
Insight: DNA tests tell trees from the wood; curb illegal logging
Sun,19 Aug 2012 02:01 PM PDT
Reuters -  SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Call it CSI: Singapore. Unlike the Crime Scene Investigators from the popular TV series, these detectives are hired to look for evidence of rogue wood from stores increasingly worried about being duped by a global trade in illegal timber now worth billions. They take wood samples into their lab and put them through DNA tests that can pinpoint the species and origin of a piece of timber. They also track timber and timber products from forest to shop to ensure clients' shipments are legal. ...
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NASA unveils Mars rover Curiosity's travel plans
Fri,17 Aug 2012 04:48 PM PDT
Reuters -  CAPE CANAVERAL (Reuters) - NASA on Friday unveiled plans for its Mars rover Curiosity's first road trip, part of a two-year quest to determine if the planet most like Earth could ever have hosted microbial life, scientists said. The one-ton nuclear-powered robotic science lab landed in a large crater near Mars' equator on August 6 to search for organic materials and other chemistry considered key to life. The rover's primary target is Mount Sharp, a mound of layered rock three miles high rising from the floor of Gale Crater. Before beginning the 4. ...
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Floating robot helps track great white sharks
Fri,17 Aug 2012 03:09 AM PDT
Reuters -  OSLO (Reuters) - A floating robot has been deployed to track great white sharks in the Pacific as part of efforts to understand the giant predators. The "wave glider", which from above looks like a yellow surfboard, picks up signals from tagged fish up to 1,000 feet away in the ocean and then sends their positions to researchers via a satellite transmitter. Scientists have only a hazy understanding of where great white sharks, portrayed as ferocious killers in films like "Jaws", swim in the oceans. The new robot will give insights into their movements. ...
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Biology gives American psychopaths a legal break
Thu,16 Aug 2012 11:02 AM PDT
Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - Criminal psychopaths in the United States whose lawyers provide biological evidence for their brain condition are more likely to be sentenced to shorter jail terms than those who are simply said to be psychopaths, according to new research. A study published in the journal Science found that if judges were told a criminal was a psychopath, they considered it an aggravating factor. But if they also heard biological explanations for the disorder, they gave shorter sentences. ... Full Story | Top |
Senior Russia space official quits after loss of satellites
Thu,16 Aug 2012 09:33 AM PDT
Reuters - MOSCOW (Reuters) - The head of a leading Russian rocket-maker has resigned, the country's space agency chief said on Thursday, after two satellites were lost in a botched launch in the latest failure to dog the once-pioneering space industry. Vladimir Nesterov, 63, is leaving the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre, which produces Russia's workhorse Proton rockets, after Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev harshly criticised the industry. ... Full Story | Top |
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