Science

PARIS — The European Union’s equivalent of a foreign ministry is starting a new effort to promote the need for sustainable space operations, but that effort will not initially include any new regulation of European satellite operators. Carine Claeys, special envoy for space and head of the Space Task Force for the European External Action

Komodo dragons – the biggest, fiercest, most impressive lizards on our planet – just got that much more amazing. A new discovery shows that under their scaly skin, these animals are completely covered in mail-like armour built out of tiny bones, from nose to tail-tip. Why would something as formidable as a Komodo dragon (Varanus

You might think you already know black – even super-black Vantablack, previously the blackest material known to science – but researchers just came up with a material that takes black to a new level of blackness. The new, as-yet-unnamed ultra-black material is made from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs), microscopic carbon strings that are a

Last week, behavioural scientist Magnus Söderlund posed a controversial question at a seminar in Sweden: Can you imagine eating human flesh? As global temperatures continue to rise, Söderlund said in a talk at the Gastro Summit in Stockholm, the consequences for agriculture could cause food to become more scarce, which might force humans to consider

SpaceX just posted dramatic footage of its commercial space taxi Crew Dragon undergoing rigorous tests of its emergency abort system. The idea is that if something goes wrong with the rocket carrying the Crew Dragon to orbit, the module can engage its own thrusters to quickly escape the danger – and then coast down safely

On March 11, 2011, Japan was struck by the most powerful earthquake in the nation’s history – a magnitude 9 temblor that triggered a tsunami with waves up to 133 feet (40 meters) high. The disaster set off three nuclear meltdowns and three hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Eight years later,

Two years ago, one freezing December night on a California rooftop, a tiny light shone weakly with a little help from the freezing night air. It wasn’t a very bright glow. But it was enough to demonstrate the possibility of generating renewable power after the Sun goes down. Working with Stanford University engineers Wei Li and

PARIS — As operators of Earth observation satellites prepare to update their fleets, with an emphasis on both improved resolution and revisit time, they disagree on how much demand there is for existing and new data. Four companies that currently operate Earth observation satellites, from high-resolution optical spacecraft to synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites, discussed

More than 40,000 years ago, the landscape of southwestern Australia was replete with giant kangaroos. One of these extinct kangaroos, known as a short-faced kangaroo, boasted a single-toed clawed foot (modern-day roos have three toes), weighed more than 260 pounds (118 kilograms), and munched on plants. According to a new study published in the journal

A fifty-year-old hypothesis predicting the existence of bodies dubbed Generic Objects of Dark Energy (GEODEs) is getting a second look in light of a proposed correction to assumptions we use to model the way our Universe expands. If this new version of a classic cosmological model is correct, some black holes could hide cores of pure

In the story of our species, Africa is known as the cradle of humanity. Somewhere on this vast continent, hundreds of thousands of years ago, a group of early humans is thought to have diverged from the others, ultimately spreading across Africa and the rest of the world. These were the first ancestors of modern

A menacing heatwave is brewing in the Pacific Ocean, and it’s got scientists worrying about the return of ‘the Blob’. Roughly five years ago, a huge patch of unusually warm ocean water appeared off the coast of North America, stretching from Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula all the way up to Alaska. It was nicknamed the

China’s iPhone users have found a new craze – a new app called Zao which lets people convincingly and hilariously transpose their faces onto actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Kit Harrington from Game of Thrones, and many others. Zao topped the Chinese iOS download chart over the weekend after first launching on the App Store on

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan said it halted a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday because of a launch pad fire that grounded the rocket. A fire at the base of the of the launch pad Japan’s Tanegashima island broke out near a vent designed to carry engine exhaust away from the

PARIS – Iceye released the first images Sept. 12 from new synthetic aperture radar satellites launched in July and began offering commercial access to its three-satellite constellation. “Iceye SAR satellite constellation is soon becoming the largest of its kind in the world,” Rafal Modrzewski, Iceye CEO and co-founder, said in a statement. “In addition to

During the age of the dinosaurs, the skies of North America were home to some of the largest flying animals the world has ever seen. New research now suggests there were at least two types of giant winged reptile living on the continent at the same time. Re-analysing a jumble of pterosaur fossils found in Alberta,

Protons probably aren’t quite as big as we’d once imagined, according to the results of a sensitive physics experiment that took eight years to complete. Scientists now say our earlier measurements of proton size were off by as much as 5 percent – which might not seem like such a huge correction, but to physicists

A Tokyo-based cashier allegedly stole credit card information from 1,300 customers. According to police, he used only his brain to take the information. Yusuke Taniguchi, 34, was arrested Thursday when police said they discovered he used the stolen information to purchase bags worth an estimated US$2,600 in March, according to CNN. The police intercepted that

In the atmosphere of an exoplanet just 111 light-years away, astronomers have just made a highly exciting discovery: they’ve detected water. As much as 50 percent of the atmosphere of K2-18b could be water vapour. But unlike other giant exoplanets on which atmospheric water has been detected, K2-18b is a super-Earth. It could be rocky,

The number of fires this year in the Amazon is the highest since 2010, reaching more than 90,000 active fires. Farmers and ranchers routinely use fires to clear the forest. But this year’s number reflects a worrisome uptick in the rate of deforestation, which had started to drop around 2005 before rebounding earlier this decade.

Scientists have invented a new method for turning carbon dioxide into a liquid fuel that can efficiently store energy in fuel cells.  The fuel could one day be the future of green transport, cramming more energy into the tank than the same volume of hydrogen while also serving as a building block for a whole

LONDON (Reuters) – Scientists for the first time have detected water in the atmosphere of an Earth-like planet orbiting a distant star, evidence that a key ingredient for life exists beyond our solar system, according to a study published on Wednesday. An artist’s impression released by NASA on September 11, 2019 shows the planet K2-18b,