The International Space Station's solar power grid got three more top-of-the-line batteries Friday during the second spacewalk in a week. Commander Shane Kimbrough and French crew member Thomas Pesquet plugged in three new lithium-ion batteries, adding to the three hooked up last week. Just like before, the station's robotic handyman saved the spacewalkers considerable time — and risk — by removing the decade-old nickel-hydrogen batteries and positioning the new ones for wiring. The robot is named Dextre, short for dexterous, with 11-foot-long arms that were operated remotely by flight controllers in Houston. Kimbrough and Pesquet hustled through the job. Within three hours, the men successfully
President Barack Obama's administration scaled back new safety measures for the sprawling network of fuel pipelines that crisscross the United States on Friday, following oil industry complaints that proposed changes would cost companies billions of dollars. An earlier administration proposal for companies to immediately repair cracks and other problems in their lines was dropped, drawing criticism from safety advocates. Documents show the pipeline repair criteria was altered to give companies more flexibility in when to do the work following a December 12 meeting of officials from the Transportation Department and White House with representatives of the oil industry.
Genetics researcher Oliver Smithies, who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2007, is dead at age 91. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced Smithies' death Wednesday. University spokeswoman MC VanGraafeiland said school officials were told of his death on Tuesday by his wife, Dr. Nobuyo Maeda. Smithies won the Nobel Prize for developing a technique used to manipulate genes in mice. The advance enhanced genetic research to better understand cancer, obesity, heart diseases and other diseases. The university said Smithies' lab created the first animal model of cystic fibrosis in 1992. Smithies shared his 2007 prize with the University of Utah's Mario Capecchi and Sir Martin Evans
SEATTLE — A band of amateur scientists selected by the FBI to look for clues in the world’s most infamous skyjacking may have found new evidence in the 45-year-old case. They’re asking for the public’s help because of potential leads that could link the hijacker known as D.B. Cooper to the Puget Sound aerospace industry in the early 1970s. The scientific team has been analyzing particles removed from the clip-on tie left behind by Cooper after he hijacked a Northwest Orient passenger jet in November 1971. A powerful electron microscope found more than 100,000 particles on old the JCPenny tie, including cerium, strontium sulfide and pure titanium. “These are what they call rare earth elements.
The mind-body connection is more than just a catchphrase: A new study finds that increased levels of stress are indeed linked to greater risk of a heart attack or stroke. Researchers found that the people in the study who had more activity in an area of the brain that regulates the body's response to stress and fear, called the amygdala, were more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than those with less activity in the amygdala, according to the study. "This study identifies, for the first time in animal models or humans, the region of the brain that links stress to the risk of heart attack or stroke," lead study author Dr. Ahmed Tawakol, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said in a statement.
Researchers in Australia finally caught on camera what they were looking for: a new species of seadragon in its natural habitat. Footage released this week in Marine Biodiversity Records shows the elusive "Ruby Seadragon" in the waters off Australia'
A year and a half after Volkswagen's "dieselgate" erupted, Paris prosecutors are probing Renault over possible "cheating" in diesel emissions, sending the carmaker's shares sliding on the stock exchange. While VW is still counting the cost of an unprecedented emissions scandal that shook not only the auto sector, but the whole of German industry to the core, similar allegations are now being levied against other carmakers, notably Italian-American giant Fiat Chrysler and France's Renault. Just a day after US officials said VW would plead guilty to three criminal charges and pay a total of $4.3 billion in fines to settle its scandal, the US Environmental Protection Agency charged that Fiat Chrysler had hidden software on diesel trucks that allowed them to spew out excess emissions.
A government lab in Madison that researches dangerous illnesses such as chronic wasting disease and West Nile virus has mishandled some of the animals used in testing and needs increased oversight, an environmental group has alleged. In its complaint filed Thursday with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility urged the department to allow an outside group to accredit its animal research facilities — including the Madison research center, which is the principal wildlife disease laboratory of the U.S. Geological Survey, the scientific research arm of the Department of Interior. The Maryland-based group based its complaint on public records, alleging
Who said that all the technology we cover here in the “Cool Tech” section of Digital Trends has to be overly complicated — or rely on anything more than some fishing wire and paper, for that matter? Manu Prakash, professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, is responsible for creating a range of astonishingly advanced pieces of scientific equipment at bargain basement prices. A so-called “paperfuge” centrifuge based on a classic children’s toy, the whirligig.
Croatia said on Saturday it had detected H5N8 bird flu among ducks on a farm some 30 km (20 miles) southeast of the capital Zagreb. The Agriculture Ministry said in a statement that all the poultry on the affected farm would be culled, along with all poultry in non-intensive farming in a 3 km radius. "We're undertaking all the necessary measures to isolate the affected poultry that will have to be culled.
Ohio's prisons agency is trying to obtain a drug that could reverse the lethal injection process if needed by stopping the effects of another drug previously used in problematic executions. The request to use the drug would come if executioners weren't confident the first of three lethal drugs would render a prisoner unconscious, Gary Mohr, director of the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said in federal court testimony Jan. 6. "Governor, I am not confident that we, in fact, can achieve a successful execution.
New commercial satellite images of North Korea’s Sohae Satellite Launching Site in North Pyongan province show no signs of upcoming missile launch, 38 North reported Friday. This comes after the reclusive state threatened to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at any time and from any location. While the satellite launching site does not show any indications of an imminent launch, it retains the capability to carry out a launch or engine test at any time without prior warning, according to the American think tank’s analysis of the images taken between November 2016 and January 2017.
A Swedish archaeological team working in Egypt has reported the discovery of 12 new tombs, and their finds include a plethora of human remains, numerous sheep or goats with puncture marks in the skulls, a cat, and even two headless crocodiles. Located at an ancient sandstone quarry site on the banks of the Nile called Gebel el Silsila, their excavation has been in progress for years and the total tomb count is now over 45; they’ve had to contend with a rising water table as well as feet of silt from the Nile covering the tombs. John Ward, assistant director of the Gebel el Silsila Project, told FoxNews.com from Egypt that most of the ancient bodies they were finding likely belonged to the quarry workers of antiquity, and that those who had been injured seem to have received medical care. The sheep or goats (it’s hard to differentiate between their skeletons, Ward said) may have been sacrificed, and as for the crocodiles, it’s unclear if they had been put there on purpose or had simply washed there.
Despite appearances, aliens have not descended upon a snowy scape in Ontario, Canada. Rather, an Earthly phenomenon is the cause of a ring of brilliant shafts of pastel-colored lights, captured in the wee hours of the morning by Timmy Joe Elzinga using his smartphone camera. It was 1:30 a.m. local time in northern Ontario on Jan. 6 when Elzinga spotted the phenomenon.
The Coffea arabica plant provides nearly three quarters of all the coffee consumed worldwide, so scientists are pretty interested in the plant’s genetic makeup. Today, researchers from UC Davis, funded by the international food company Suntory, announced that they had sequenced the genome of the plant and publicly released it for the first time ever. The genome sequence has been added to the Phytozome.net genomics research portal, making it available to other scientists and researchers working with the C. arabica plant. “We hope that the C. arabica sequence will eventually benefit everyone involved with coffee — from coffee farmers, whose livelihoods are threatened by devastating diseases like coffee leaf rust, to coffee processors and consumers around the world,” Juan Medrano, one of the UC Davis researchers, said in the university’s press release.
Borne out of a Twitter hashtag, the #DoesItFart Google spreadsheet lacks the veracity of a peer-reviewed academic journal, but it does provide a terrific starting off point for those wondering about the farting habits of frogs, freshwater mussels, or the gray fox. Initially compiled by Nicholas Caruso, a Ph.D. candidate in biological sciences at University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, the spreadsheet is currently in "view only" mode, suggesting that some level of peer-review is taking place.
Electronic waste is rising sharply across Asia as higher incomes allow hundreds of millions of people to buy smartphones and other gadgets, with serious consequences for human health and the environment, according to a UN study released Sunday. "For many countries that already lack infrastructure for environmentally sound e-waste management, the increasing volumes are a cause for concern," said Ruediger Kuehr, the report's co-author and head of the UN University's Sustainable Cycles Programme. For many years, China and some other parts of Asia have been a dumping ground for discarded electronics from the developed world, recycling the waste in often unsafe but ultracheap backyard factories.
Chris Smith works as a firefighter and as a paramedic in two different towns to support his wife and their children. A year and a half ago, we posted some questions, starting with this one. What is the American dream? So many of you remembered it as
If you were to pick one emerging technology with the potential to have a massive positive impact on humanity in the coming years, there’s a good chance you’d go with 3D bioprinting. The ability to use “bio-ink” to print out biomaterials ranging from heart tissues to bone and cartilage is incredibly exciting — although at present it’s not exactly the most user-friendly of tech. One company hoping to change that is Cellink, which this week has announced the launch of its new Bio X printer, which it hopes will bring 3D bioprinting to a whole new audience.
Some contract workers don't make enough money to afford housing near their jobs so they sleep in their cars between shifts. Take silicon valley, the hightech companies with the golden names. Where employees get free food, any kind, as much as they want
Alcohol could cause changes in the brain which could have a significant impact on rising obesity rates around the world, suggests new researchers from the UK's Francis Crick Institute and University College London. The rodents were injected directly in the abdomen with doses of alcohol over a three-day weekend, mimicking the effect of a large intake of alcohol in a short period of time, commonly known as binge drinking.
Keep an eye on the picnic basket. Bear sightings are surging across Connecticut. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection says there were about 6,700 black bear sightings in 2016, a 49 percent increase over the previous year.
One of the teams vying to win a $30 million race to the moon has locked up all the funding needed for its lunar mission, team members said. Moon Express — one of five teams still competing for the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) — has secured $20 million in "Series B" funding, bringing the total funds the group has raised from private investors to more than $45 million, representatives of the Florida-based company said. "We now have all the resources in place to shoot for the moon," Moon Express co-founder and CEO Bob Richards said in a statement. The other teams in the running, in addition to Moon Express, are SpaceIL from Israel, Japan's Hakuto, India-based Team Indus and the international collaboration Synergy Moon.
The term UFO has a way of stirring up speculation and controversy. Even though this bland acronym refers only to an airborne object who’s appearance hasn’t been explained yet – with no references whatsoever to “aliens” or “extra-terrestrials” – one cannot mention it without inspiring talk of little green men and massive conspiracies. This has certainly been the reaction to a video that was recently released by the Committee for the Study of Anomalous Air Phenomena (CEFAA), the Chilean government agency responsible for investigating UFOs. Originally captured by a helicopter belonging to the Chilean navy two years ago, the release of this 10-minute video coincided with the conclusion of the Committee’s
Recent issues around machine learning biases and ethics make it clear that math and data can only take us so far. The recent fake news debacle and the efforts of some top researchers in natural language processing to address it show that sometimes even just defining the problem you’re trying to solve is the hardest part. We need human intelligence to decide how and when to use machine intelligence, and the more sophisticated the uses we make of machine intelligence, the more critically we need human intelligence to ensure it’s deployed sensibly and safely. It’s time we started exalting critical thinking skills the way we do math skills. While we can entrust machines with mathematical calculations,