Science

ORLANDO — Space Perspective, a company offering tourist flights into the stratosphere, is buying a ship it plans to use as an oceangoing launch platform for its balloons. The Florida-based company announced Nov. 15 it acquired a ship called MS Voyager that it is converting to serve as a launch platform for its Spaceship Neptune

The first land plants to evolve penetrating root systems, around 400 million years ago, may very well have triggered a series of mass extinctions in the ocean. The expansion of plants onto terra firma was a big moment on Earth, completely restructuring the terrestrial biosphere. According to researchers from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) in

Everything in the Universe has gravity – and feels it too. Yet this most common of all fundamental forces is also the one that presents the biggest challenges to physicists. Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity has been remarkably successful in describing the gravity of stars and planets, but it doesn’t seem to apply perfectly

Evidence of tattoos found adorning the mummified skins of two women from an ancient town on the bank of the Nile River suggests the lower back has been a trendy tattoo spot for more than 3,000 years. One of the female mummies described by researchers in a recent paper was excavated from the site of

We finally have the technological means to detect interstellar objects. We’ve detected two in the last few years, ‘Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, and there are undoubtedly more out there. As such, there’s been a lot of interest in developing a mission that could visit one once we detect it. But what would such a mission look

Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change, are on track to rise 1 percent in 2022 to reach an all-time high, scientists said Friday at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt. Emissions from oil, fueled by the continuing rebound in aviation, will likely rise more than 2 percent compared to

WASHINGTON — The European Space Agency is requesting several hundred million euros at its upcoming ministerial council meeting for new satellite navigation technologies from low Earth orbit to the moon. In a Nov. 9 briefing, ESA officials said they are proposing about 500 million euros ($518 million) over the next three years for projects to

Some fish keep a close eye on the depths below while swimming, new research shows, for much the same reason we pay attention to where we’re putting our feet. They aren’t taking steps, of course, but according to a new study, being biased to stimuli falling on the lower parts of the eye serves an

Ice isn’t always ice all the way through. Even at temperatures well below freezing, its surface can be coated in a film of quasi-liquid atoms, with its thickness usually only a few nanometers. The process of its formation is known as premelting (or ‘surface melting’), and it’s why your ice cubes can stick together even

The hikers who first stumbled onto a completely frozen mummy within a European alpine gully in 1991 must have received quite the shock. Since then, the roughly 5,200-year-old murder victim, Ötzi the Iceman, has continued surprising people – including the archaeologists now studying him. The Neolithic mummy was thought to have been preserved by a

Nearly 37 years ago the world watched in stunned horror as an explosion destroyed the space shuttle Challenger. The accident occurred 73 seconds after liftoff and killed seven astronauts. Memories of shuttle pieces falling into the sea remain with everyone who witnessed the catastrophe. In the aftermath, NASA searched for pieces of the shuttle. The

​Each of the last eight years, if projections for 2022 hold, will be hotter than any year prior to 2015, the United Nations (UN) said Sunday, detailing a dramatic increase in the rate of global warming. Sea level rise, glacier melt, torrential rains, heat waves – and the deadly disasters they cause – have all

TAMPA, Fla. — Satellite antenna developer NXT Communications Corp.’s equipment, property, and other collateral are being auctioned off amid production delays that have left L3Harris Technologies in the lurch. Three-year-old NXT Comm secured a deal last year with the defense contractor to deliver electronically steered antennas (ESAs) in the first quarter of 2022 to support

Fertilizers may change the way flowers ‘look’ to bees and discourage them from pollinating, a study suggests. Flowers attract bees using small electric fields that bees can learn to recognize. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal PNAS Nexus on Wednesday, found that the fertilizers change these electric fields and bees seem to find these

Quantum mechanics, the theory which rules the microworld of atoms and particles, certainly has the X factor. Unlike many other areas of physics, it is bizarre and counter-intuitive, which makes it dazzling and intriguing. When the 2022 Nobel prize in physics was awarded to Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger for research shedding light

In a strange turn of events, researchers in Mexico had to rebury an unusual archaeological monument found in the outskirts of Mexico City – covering up an important historical discovery until some unknown time in the future. The discovery in question is a tunnel built centuries ago as part of the Albarradón de Ecatepec: a

Sometimes it’s tempting to imagine a supernatural hand behind the arrangement of celestial bodies. But the Universe is big, huge even, and nature’s flow presents many fascinations. So it is with the galactic triplet Arp 248, an arrangement of interacting galaxies that’s both visually and scientifically fascinating. Arp 248 is a trio of small interacting

While it is certainly true that plants need CO2 to thrive, it appears that even plants can overdo it. Our CO2 habit is gradually making it harder for plants to absorb the vital nutrients they need to grow, the same nutrients that we rely on them to obtain. This is what a new review of

WASHINGTON — NASA is weighing whether it is safe for a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft to approach the International Space Station because one of two solar array failed to deploy hours after launch Nov. 7. The Cygnus spacecraft, flying the NG-18 mission for NASA, was scheduled to deploy its two circular UltraFlex solar arrays

Before life on Earth exploded in diversity some 540 million years ago, the first primitive animal skeletons were already starting to form. Squishy-looking marine sponges from this time have been found in tubular thimble-like shapes, structured by hard, mineralized threads – specimens that are thought to be among the earliest assemblages of skeletal fossils. Yet

One hundred years ago, our understanding of ancient Egypt changed forever when the tomb of King Tutankhamun was found on November 4, 1922, in the Valley of Kings. Born around 1305 BCE, Tutankhamun only ruled Egypt for about 10 years. Yet his tomb was furnished with never-before-seen riches. Our fascination with mummies is understandable. Gazing

Fifty years ago, NASA and the Soviet space program conducted the first sample-return missions from the Moon. This included lunar rocks brought back to Earth by the Apollo astronauts and those obtained by robotic missions that were part of the Soviet Luna Program. The analysis of these rocks revealed a great deal about the Moon’s

One of the more unusual consequences of extreme climate change could include an increase in the frequency of rainbows appearing across the globe by 2100 by as much as 5 percent. Researchers behind a new study modelling the less obvious effects of climate change measure this increase in terms of days in the year with

LONG BEACH, Calif. – Germany’s Team NimbRo took home the $5 million grand prize in the ANA Avatar XPrize finals Nov. 5, after completing a test course that showed how remote-control robots could contribute to space exploration. French startup Pollen Robotics captured the $2 million second-place prize. Team Northeastern from Boston won $1 million for

Along with the thousands of men, women, and children who have died since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, there have been hundreds of casualties in the Black Sea among the resident dolphin and porpoise populations. Scientists who study the region reported an “unusual increase” in strandings and bycatch – when animals are unintentionally caught by

The simple mention of the word “radiation” often evokes fear in people. For others, it’s fun to think a little exposure to radiation could turn you into the next superhero, just like the Hulk. But is it true basically everything around us is radioactive, even the food we eat? You may have heard bananas are

Eight thousand years ago, tragedy struck a Stone Age community living in what is now Majoonsuo in Finland – the death of a beloved child. An analysis of their grave reveals the pomp and grandeur of that child’s burial: a final resting place that included feathers, fur, and rare plant fibers. These samples are the

China successfully launched the third and final piece of its new Tiangong space station on Monday – and the rocket’s 23-ton body is coming back down somewhere on Earth this weekend. The Mengtian module, which carries science experiments, blasted off on China’s Long March 5B rocket. As it climbed into space, the rocket’s core stage

Scientists have to factor in all kinds of variables when it comes to predicting ice loss in Antarctica as the world warms up. Now researchers need to take into account a huge river that runs for some 460 kilometers (286 miles) deep beneath the ice; a distance longer than the river Thames that runs through