Today's Reuters Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
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Postcards from Mars show rover's key science targets
Tue,28 Aug 2012 06:20 AM PDT
Reuters -  CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA on Monday showed off the first high-resolution, color portrait images taken by the Mars rover Curiosity, detailing a mound of layered rock where scientists plan to focus their search for the chemical ingredients of life on the Red Planet. The stunning images reveal distinct tiers near the base of the 3-mile- (5-km-)tall mountain that rises from the floor of the vast, ancient impact basin known as Gale Crater, where Curiosity landed on August 6 to begin its two-year mission. ...
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Bill Nye the Science Guy says creationism not good for kids
Mon,27 Aug 2012 10:01 PM PDT
Reuters -  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Scientist and children's television personality Bill Nye, in a newly released online video, panned biblical creationism and implored American parents who reject the scientific theory of evolution not to teach their beliefs to their youngsters. "I say to the grownups, 'If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we've observed in the universe that's fine. But don't make your kids do it,'" said Nye, best known as host of the educational TV series "Bill Nye the Science Guy. ...
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Factbox: Reaction to death of U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong
Mon,27 Aug 2012 06:57 AM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, has died at age 82, his family said Saturday. Following are reactions to the death of the Ohio native, who had undergone heart bypass surgery in early August. * U.S. President Barack Obama: "Neil was among the greatest of American heroes - not just of his time, but of all time. ... "Today, Neil's spirit of discovery lives on in all the men and women who have devoted their lives to exploring the unknown - including those who are ensuring that we reach higher and go further in space. ... Full Story | Top |
Factbox: U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon
Mon,27 Aug 2012 06:57 AM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - Facts about former U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, who has died at the age of 82, according to U.S. media: * Armstrong grew up in Ohio with a strong interest in flight and earned his pilot's license while still a boy. * After flying combat missions during the Korean War, he became a test pilot and joined NASA's astronaut program in 1962. * As he stepped on the moon's dusty surface, Armstrong said: ""That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. ... Full Story | Top |
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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