May 2012
137 posts
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Enter the Dragon: Astronauts open up first private...
Space station astronauts floated into the Dragon on Saturday, a day after its heralded arrival as the world’s first commercial supply ship.
NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, the first one inside the docked capsule, said the Dragon looks as if it carries about as much cargo as his pickup truck back home in Houston. It has the smell of a brand new car, he added.
“I spent quite a bit of...
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Space Chase Billionaires
Elon Musk is the founder, chief executive and chief designer of SpaceX. The company managed to overcome a series of technical and financial crises and made history Friday by attaching the first private spacecraft to the international space station.
Amazon.com Founder Jeff Bezos runs Blue Origin, a start-up targeting space station runs. An unnamed spaceship developed by Blue Origin...
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Subtropical Storm Beryl
Marking the first time in a century where two named storms have formed before the start of hurricane season on June 1, Subtropical Storm Beryl took aim at the ribbon of barrier islands along the Southeast as the Memorial Day holiday got underway, threatening to temper, if not squelch, the symbolic start of the American summer for tens of thousands of Southerners.
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SpaceX capsule
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World's most powerful radio telescope to be shared...
South African politicians and scientists were jubilant Friday after a decision was announced to locate the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
But their joy was tinged with disappointment that South Africa’s bid for the entire project did not succeed. The decision was nonetheless seen as a major boost for South African science.
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Jet Device Injects Drugs Without Needles
The prospect of less painful medicine shots without needles came a step closer this month, as US researchers revealed how they have developed a device that delivers a controlled, tiny, high-pressure jet into the skin without using a hyperdermic needle. While there are already several jet-devices on the market, they tend to be of an “all or nothing” design that delivers the same...
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SpaceX First Company to Dock at Space Station...
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. docked a supply ship at the International Space Station in a breakthrough for commercial space travel.
Closely held SpaceX, controlled by billionaire Elon Musk, connected its unmanned Dragon capsule to the station at 12:02 p.m. New York time, according to Kyle Herring, a spokesman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It is the first...
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Breakthrough in stem cell technology a first in...
Ateam of researchers at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is the first in Africa to establish groundbreaking biomedical stem cell technology, which could hold the key to finding cures for some of Africa’s most prevalent diseases.
The CSIR Department of Biological Sciences’ Gene Expression and Biophysics Group, led by Dr Musa Mhlanga, success- fully generated the first...
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Mysterious nebula glows brightly in stunning new...
A telescope in Hawaii has captured a spectacular new view on a distant nebula, revealing a glowing swirl of gas that is at the center of an unsolved mystery surrounding the nebula’s birth.
The photo from the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii shows the complex planetary nebula Sharpless 2-71, which is located about 3,260 light-years from Earth in the constellation Aquila (The Eagle).
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Lab uses skin cells to help repair heart muscle
Lab scientists on Wednesday reported that for the first time they had taken skin cells from patients who had suffered heart failure and turned them into cells that could repair damaged cardiac muscle.
The technique has so far been tested on rats and it could take up to a decade of problem-solving before trials can go ahead on humans, the scientists cautioned.
Even so, it marks an important...
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Maryland teen wins world's largest high school...
A Maryland student was awarded the top prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair on Friday for developing a urine and blood test that detects pancreatic cancer with 90 percent accuracy.
Jack Andraka, 15, claimed the $75,000 prize for his test, which is roughly 28 times cheaper and faster, and over 100 times more sensitive than current tests.
The teen from Crownsville, Md,...
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Tyrannosaurus Sold Despite Mongolian President's...
Despite a lawsuit from the president of Mongolia, a Dallas based auction house sold a largely intact fossil skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus bataar on Sunday for $1.1 million but transfer of the bones will be put on hold during litigation. Mongolian President Elbegdorj Tsakhia of Mongolia sued Heritage Auctions in Dallas County Court on Saturday. Tsakhia said the fossil came from the Gobi Desert...
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Scientists find new sensory organ in whales
Biologists on Wednesday reported they had discovered a new sensory organ on blue, humpback, minke and fin whales that helps explain why these mammals are so huge.
In a study appearing in the journal Nature, researchers in the United States and Canada said the organ is located at the tip of the whale’s chin, in a niche of fibrous tissue that connects the lower jaw bones.
Comprising a node...
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Astronaut Photographs Solar Eclipse's Moon Shadow...
As millions of skywatchers gazed up at a dazzling solar eclipse on Sunday, one astronaut was amazed by looking down at the eclipse’s shadow moving across the Earth.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit captured spectacular photos of the moon’s shadow cast by an annular solar eclipse on Sunday (May 20). The images show a huge, black blemish on otherwise pristine white clouds over the Western...
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Rewritable memory encoded into DNA
Synthetic biologists have long sought to devise biological data-storage systems because they could be useful in a variety of applications, and because data storage will be a fundamental function of the digital circuits that the field hopes to create in cells.Rewritable biological memory circuits have been made previously, for instance from systems of transcription factors, which can be used to...
