You can study a painting by taking a step back and studying its composition, but you can also get in closer, examining the brush strokes and the paint. Some researchers are getting extremely close, magnifying the tiniest details and exposing previously hidden secrets. Last month, researchers from Northwestern University announced that they had developed a

LONDON (Reuters) – It would be irresponsible for any scientist to conduct human gene-editing studies in people, and a central registry of research plans should be set up to ensure transparency, World Health Organization experts said on Tuesday. FILE PHOTO: A logo is pictured on the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, November

The base section (right) will fly in the hop test after the nosecone (left) was damaged by wind© 2019 Bloomberg Finance LP It’s time to sit up and take note. SpaceX may perform a test “hop” of its Starship vehicle for the first time as early as this week, as the company moves ahead with

Wednesday sees 2019’s third and final supermoon. Getty Are you ready for (yet) another supermoon? On Wednesday, March 20, a full moon will rise due east very close to the time of the spring equinox. There’s no link between the two celestial phenomena at all, with the spring equinox simply marking the moment in Earth’s orbit

A US government-led group is working with chipmaker Intel and Cray to develop and build the nation’s fastest computer by 2021 for conducting nuclear weapons and other research, officials said on Monday. The Department of Energy and the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago said they are working on a supercomputer dubbed Aurora with Intel, the

Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin Maryam MirzakhaniCourtesy of Stanford News Service While Thirdsday and Pi Day have passed for 2019, don’t fret: there are still mathematical holidays to celebrate this year! Between Pi Day (March 14) and Tau Day (June 28) – a celebration of the mathematical constant tau, which is equal

A Cuvier’s Beaked Whale like this one was found with pounds of plastic in its stomach.Getty It’s become an all too disturbing trend: huge whales that ingest absurd amounts of plastic pollution in the ocean and end up dying of starvation and dehydration. Over the weekend, a young male Cuvier’s Beaked Whale was found dead near

Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin Miyake died in 1982, just as his invention was gaining global traction.Google Today’s Google Doodle honors inventor Seiichi Miyake, who developed the tactile pavement that helps visually impaired people navigate street crossings and transit stations. If you’ve walked around a city lately, you may have noticed

A huge study suggests the Apple Watch can detect a worrisome irregular heartbeat at least sometimes — but experts say more work is needed to tell if using wearable technology to screen for heart problems really helps. More than 419,000 Apple Watch users signed up for the unusual study, making it the largest ever to

The collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies. Not graphs, but close.NASA For most of us, the word graph brings back memories (not always pleasant) of pencils and rulers and quadrille ruled paper, though a more recent generation may think instead of pie and bar charts produced in Excel from spreadsheets. However, in the last

cheerful elderly coupleGetty How lifelong inequalities add up is one of the hottest issues in academic gerontology. A new book from Boston University professor Deborah Carr, the editor-in-chief of Journal of Gerontology, provides a much-needed reality check on the nation’s plans for dealing with retirement. Titled Golden Years? Social Inequalities In Later Life, Carr’s book brings home a

Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin Humans developed tool use some 2.5 million years ago in Africa. The first tools were made from chipped cobbles or larger flakes that had been carefully selected for size and weight. Simple stone tools persisted almost unchanged until about 250,000 years ago, only then more elaborate

A Russian cosmonaut and two US astronauts arrived Friday at the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, five months after the failed launch of a rocket carrying two of the passengers. NASA astronaut Nick Hague and his Russian colleague Alexey Ovchinin, who both survived a dramatically aborted Soyuz launch last year, were joined

Patrick Pichette, chief financial officer of Google Inc., speaks during an Economic Club of Canada event in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010. Google Inc., owner of the world’s most popular Internet search engine, said increased queries for cars and travel and fewer coupon searches suggest the U.S. economy is improving. Photographer: Norm

The impressively huge galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+223, whose light took over 5 billion years to reach us, was the target of one of the Hubble Frontier Fields programs. This massive object gravitationally lenses the objects behind it, stretching and magnifying them, and enabling us to see more distant recesses of the depths of space than

This remarkable ‘Dust devil frenzy’ image was taken in the Terra Sabaea region of Mars, west of Augakuh Vallis. This mysterious pattern sits on the crest of a ridge and is thought to be the result of dust devil activity – essentially the convergence of hundreds or maybe even thousands of smaller Martian tornadoes.ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC

Tokyo’s Olympics may become known as the “Robot Games.” Organisers on Friday showed off robots that will be used at the new National Stadium to provide assistance for fans using wheelchairs. Tokyo Olympic official Masaaki Komiya pointed out that Japan is known for its robot technology, and the 2020 Summer Games are a good place

It has been quite a stressful week for me, I am quite new to research and I got my first chance to help write an experimental proposal this week. Having read many scientific papers, I realised how important the language I use is and that certain words that mean something to me, a laser physicist,

If the Moon is gradually moving farther away from us, will it eventually go away altogether, and when is that likely to happen? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Robert Frost, Aerospace engineer, on Quora: The Moon

The multiverse idea states that there are an arbitrarily large number of Universes like our own out there, embedded in our Multiverse. It’s possible, but not necessary, for other pockets within the Multiverse to exist where the laws of physics are different. Look out at the Universe all you want, with arbitrarily powerful technology, and

It begins with 3.14 and goes on forever. But the value of Pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, has new meaning on this Pi Day. Emma Haruka Iwao, a Google employee, has broken the Guinness world record for calculating the most digits of Pi. Iwao and a Google team computed Pi

Artist’s concept. The surface of Mars.Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech Scan the stark Martian surface, and see a dry, dead world. Nothing could survive there, researchers say. The surface is doused by cosmic radiation, devoid of liquid water, and devastatingly cold—last night’s low was 141 below zero F. To sum it up: “The surface is inhospitable,”

I admit it. I have no idea where most of these “official” days come from. Who determines that it is National Pancake Day or National “Apply Lip Balm” Day? I made that last one up, but it actually might exist.  March 14 is Pi Day, which celebrates the mathematical constant π (pi). In 2019, many

Demis Hassabis, chief executive officer and cofounder of DeepMind Technologies Ltd. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg© 2016 Bloomberg Finance LP DeepMind’s ethics board has been a closely guarded secret ever since the artificial intelligence company was acquired by Google in 2014. But a new report from Hal Hodson at The Economist sheds some light on how the ethics board came

Crew members of the International Space Station (ISS) next mission, Aleksey Ovchinin of Russia, Nick Hague and Christina Koch of the U.S., pose for a picture during a news conference in Baikonur, Kazakhstan March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov MOSCOW (Reuters) – Two astronauts who survived a dramatic launch mishap in October said on Wednesday they

The US space agency NASA on Wednesday cast a shadow on the future of its new heavy-lift rocket, the SLS - acknowledging development delays on a project that is already years behind. The Space Launch System program is being run much as the Apollo and space shuttle mission were handled in the days of old. But

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Top scientists and ethicists from seven countries on Wednesday called for a global moratorium on gene editing of human eggs, sperm or embryos that would result in genetically-altered babies after a rogue Chinese researcher last year announced the birth of the world’s first gene-edited twins. FILE PHOTO: Scientist He Jiankui attends the

What does paranormal mean? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Luis Elizondo, Director of Special Programs at To The Stars Academy, on Quora: When you think about the word “paranormal,” what comes to mind? Probably poltergeists, ghost

In the United States right now, a “bomb cyclone” weather system is dominating the headlines and rightfully so. Blizzard conditions with winds approaching minimum hurricane speeds are affecting parts of the interior U.S. The attention is certainly warranted as “bombogenesis,” a pressure drop of 24 mb in 24 hours, is somewhat rare in the Plains. However,

Deposit Photos Enhanced By CogWorld Introduction Even though neuroscience has made amazing advances, the origin of consciousness in humans — and its nature and processes — still remain largely unknown; the underlying physiological mechanisms of generating conscious beings are still not clearly understood. However, with the advances in brain mapping and neuroscience, we are perhaps

An unmanned capsule from Elon Musk’s SpaceX was due to return to earth on Friday after a short-term stay on the International Space Station, capping the first orbital test mission in NASA’s long-delayed quest to resume human space flight from US soil later this year. A SpaceX rocket had launched the 16-foot-tall capsule from the

When Betelgeuse goes Supernova what will be the effects on Earth (not just the radiation but also the ejected gas shell)? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Corey S. Powell, former editor in chief of Discover, on

Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin #trashtag challenge photos by Byron Román on Facebook, which prompted a resurgence of the #trashtag challengehttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156466235064055&set=a.10150601078734055&type=3&theater A new challenge has gone viral and this one is prompting people around the world to clean up their nearby green areas and post before/after photos. The space in which

FILE PHOTO: A Toyota logo is displayed at the 89th Geneva International Motor Show in Geneva, Switzerland March 5, 2019. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy/File Photo TOKYO (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp, one of the world’s largest automakers, and Japan’s space agency said on Tuesday they had agreed to cooperate in developing a manned lunar rover that runs

Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin At least we’re not still calling it “the information superhighway.”Google The World Wide Web turns 30 today — the perfect occasion for a Google Doodle. We tend to use the terms “Web” and “Internet” pretty interchangeably these days (except that almost nobody actually calls it the

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk’s security clearance is being reviewed by the Pentagon after the billionaire smoked marijuana on a California comedian’s podcast in September, a US official said on Thursday. An incident report was started by the Pentagon some time after the marijuana event, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The

BRASILIA (Reuters) – The United States and Brazil have negotiated an accord to safeguard U.S. space technology the South American nation hopes will be used in commercial rockets lifting off from its launch site near the equator, the Brazilian government said on Monday. FILE PHOTO: A view of Alcantara space center during a media members

On Valentine’s Day 2019, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that El Niño officially arrived. The climate agency stated in a press release: El Niño conditions across the equatorial Pacific have come together, and we can now announce its arrival,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, and ENSO forecaster. “While sea surface

Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin What are some of the obstacles that exist to widespread adoption of hydrogen fuel cells? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Andy Marsh, Plug Power CEO, on Quora:

In April of 1990, the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Neptune, snapping a series of incredible images of our Solar System’s outermost planet. 150 years prior, nobody knew that our Solar System would wind up containing 8 planets, but a few scientists suspected, from the evidence of Uranus, that it might be out there.Time Life

NASA has captured unprecedented photos of the interaction of shockwaves from two supersonic aircraft, part of its research into developing planes that can fly faster than sound without thunderous “sonic booms”. When an aircraft crosses that threshold – around 1,225 kilometres (760 miles) per hour at sea level – it produces waves from the pressure

Raspberry Pi’s like this one have helped make Sony’s manufacturing facility in Wales 30% more efficient, according to its general manager. Image via Sony Open a box with a Raspberry Pi and it can seem like the rest of the computer is missing. Costing just $35, it’s a stripped-down circuit board covered with metal pins and squares,

Clockwise from top left, the asteroids shown here are 29 Amphitrite, 324 Bamberga, 2 Pallas, and 89 JuliaCredit: ESO/Vernazza et al. Pallas, our solar system’s third largest and wholly unexplored asteroid, is the target for a potential SmallSat NASA flyby mission for possible launch in 2022. This remnant protoplanet, in fact, remains the largest unexplored

Whoopie Goldberg just revealed that she went through an ordeal. (Photo by John Lamparski/WireImage,)Getty Recently, Whoopi Goldberg has been out of The View and out of view in general. This prompted some conspiracy theories on social media such as: Whoopi Goldberg’s absence from The View (she’s sick, they say) since the day after they announced

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has observed water molecules moving around the dayside of the Moon, a finding that may prove beneficial as the agency plans to put astronauts back on the lunar surface. Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) — the instrument aboard LRO — measured sparse layer of molecules temporarily stuck to the

Brie Larson attends the Marvel Studios ‘Captain Marvel’ Premiere held on March 4, 2019 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images)Getty You are not Captain Marvel. You are not the most powerful superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). You are also not playing Captain Marvel in the movie Captain Marvel. That role is already taken

A ‘Big Bounce’ requires a recollapsing phase (i.e., a Big Crunch) followed by an expanding phase (which looks like a new Big Bang).E. Siegel, derivative from Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason The ultimate fate of the Universe is one of the biggest existential questions we can ask. Given that our Universe has been around for billions of

SpaceX’s swanky new crew capsule returned from the International Space Station to an old-fashioned splashdown in the Atlantic on Friday, successfully ending a test flight that could lead to astronaut rides later this year. The Dragon capsule undocked from the orbiting lab early Friday. Six hours later, the capsule carrying a test dummy parachuted into