3,596 articles from NOVEMBER 2019

NASA shares mid-sized robotic lunar lander concept with industry

As NASA presses forward with the agency's mission to the Moon, Mars and beyond, the development of top-tier technology is critical to success. With emphasis on lunar exploration and scientific investigation, the desire to deliver a wide variety of payloads to the Moon has increased.

The Suburbs Are Kicking the Animals Out. Enter the Animal Rescue Squad.

ATLANTA -- In a small suburban park on a muggy morning a few months ago, a woman in elbow-length gloves was armed with a net, a loaf of bread and a tall cardboard box, all in hopes of catching an elusive goose.The goose, whose left leg was tightly wound in fishing line, walked with a pronounced hobble; as it swam, the leg dragged listlessly in the water. Yet despite its condition, animal instinct...

Scientists praise stronger beers as ‘very, very healthy’ thanks to gut-friendly bacteria

Certain beers could be considered “very healthy” thanks to the amount of gut-friendly bacteria they contain, according to scientists specialising in gut health.Professor Eric Claassen, who works at Amsterdam University, explained that strong Belgian beers, including Hoegaarden, Westmalle Tripel and Echt Kriekenbier, are rich in probiotic microbes that offer a range of health...

'People are caught up in magical thinking': was the oldest woman in the world a fraud?

Jeanne Calment was 122 when she died. But last year a Russian scientist claimed she was a con artist, sparking an international dispute over the woman who may still hold the secret to eternal lifeIf time makes fools of us all, you couldn’t blame André-François Raffray for taking it more personally than most. In 1965, Raffray, a lawyer in the southern French city of Arles, thought he had hit on...

The Sinister Scientist Behind the CIA’s Mind-Control Mayhem

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/APStephen Kinzer has written books about civil wars, terror attacks, and bloody coups, but his latest might be his most alarming. “I’m still in shock,” Kinzer says of what he learned about the appalling experiments conducted by a government scientist most Americans have never heard of. “I can’t believe that this happened.”These...

Massive black hole that 'should not even exist' has been discovered

A black hole with a mass 70 times greater than the Sun was discovered, leaving scientists stunned. "Black holes of such mass should not even exist in our Galaxy, according to most of the current models of stellar evolution," Professor Jifeng Liu, who led the team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences that made the discovery, said in a statement. Scientists previously believed that the mass...


FRIDAY 29. NOVEMBER 2019


Blue Origin’s expansion plans rush ahead at its Seattle-area HQ — and in Los Angeles

KENT, Wash. — Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space venture is rapidly expanding on several fronts, ranging from its headquarters facility south of Seattle to a new beachhead in the Los Angeles area — within the orbit of its main competitor, Elon Musk's SpaceX. Just three and a half years ago, Blue Origin's workforce amounted to 600 employees, and even then, Bezos said his...

Amazon fires are causing glaciers in the Andes to melt even faster

If you have turned on a TV or read the news during the past few months, you have probably heard of the widespread fires that wrought havoc on the Amazon rainforest this year. Fires occur in the rainforest every year, but the past 11 months saw the number of fires increase by more than 70% when compared with 2018, indicating a major acceleration in land clearing by the country's logging and farming...

NA61/SHINE gives neutrino experiments a helping hand

Neutrinos are the lightest of all the known particles that have mass. Yet their behavior as they travel could help answer one of the greatest puzzles in physics: why the present-day universe is made mostly of matter when the Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter. In two recent papers, the NA61/SHINE collaboration reports particle measurements that are crucial for...

Black Friday in Britain: where it all went wrong

This year has been challenging for retailers, to put it mildly. According to the British Retail Consortium, sales were down 1.3% year on year in September, the most recent month available, and the worst since the consortium's records began in 1995. The summer wasn't much better, with sales down 0.5% in August and up only 0.3% in July – itself a record low. The Centre for Retail Research says it...

New algorithms to determine eigenstates and thermal states on quantum computers

Determining the quantum mechanical behavior of many interacting particles is essential to solving important problems in a variety of scientific fields, including physics, chemistry and mathematics. For instance, in order to describe the electronic structure of materials and molecules, researchers first need to find the ground, excited and thermal states of the Born-Oppenheimer Hamiltonian...

Compound controls biological clock with light

Researchers at Japan's Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM) of Nagoya University, the Netherlands' University of Groningen, and colleagues have found a new way to regulate the biological clocks of cells. Further studies on their approach, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, could lead to treatments for a variety of conditions, including sleep disorder.

Are 'dog years' for real? An explanation of calculating canine age

If your dog has been alive and kicking its paws about for a decade, the widely held belief is that it has aged as much as a human would have done by the grand old age of 70. This conversion factor—each year of a dog's life accounting for seven human years—comes from dividing human life expectancy of around 77 by the canine life expectancy of around 11.

Ultraluminous X-ray source UGC 6456 ULX investigated in detail

Russian astronomers have performed a detailed study of one of the ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in the galaxy UGC 6456. Results of the research, presented in a paper published November 20 on arXiv.org, suggest that this source, designated UGC 6456 ULX, is one of the brightest known ULXs in the optical range.

Black Hole or Newborn Stars? SOFIA Finds Galactic Puzzle

Portal origin URL: Black Hole or Newborn Stars? SOFIA Finds Galactic PuzzlePortal origin nid: 455848Published: Friday, November 29, 2019 - 11:00Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: Scientists on SOFIA found a black hole that seems to be changing its galactic surroundings in a way that is usually associated with newborn stars.Portal...

Researchers find potential solution to overheating mobile phones

Modern computer memory encodes information by switching magnetic bits within devices. Now, a ground-breaking study conducted by researchers from NUS Electrical and Computer Engineering has found a new efficient way of using 'spin waves' to switch magnetization at room temperature for more energy-efficient spin memory and logic devices.

Samsung researchers: More efficient quantum dots without heavy metals

A team at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology has announced that they have improved quantum dot (QD) technology for use in large displays by developing QDs that are both more efficient and have no heavy metals. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes their work and their plans for the future. Alexander Efros, with the Naval Research Laboratory, in Washington D.C....

Biologists examine sperm quality on the basis of their metabolism

Every tenth couple worldwide is affected by infertility. The reasons for this are manifold, but mostly well researched. Nevertheless, about fifteen percent of cases remain unexplained. A team of biologists at TU Dresden has now gained new insights into the metabolic properties that make up a good sperm cell.

Adiabatic shortcuts: Short and sweet in the quantum world

Completing a task slowly and carefully may provide us with a high-quality product. It can be summed up by the popular adage "easy does it." But what if a high price has to be paid for slowness? Time is a scarce resource and, what is more, a good result is not guaranteed, since we may be easily disturbed or interrupted by various matters and events if we take too long. So it is clear that we are...

DJ Mark Radcliffe gets commemorative bench after cancer recovery

Bench in Manchester celebrates BBC DJ’s cancer treatment and is part of Re-Write Cancer campaignIt is an established way to commemorate the dead: dedicating a bench to a loved one’s memory and placing it in one of their favourite locations.But the BBC DJ Mark Radcliffe has been bestowed the honour in life after a bench bearing his name was installed in the grounds of Manchester University,...