SEVENTY-FIVE years ago this month, The New York Times reported that Albert Einstein had completed his unified field theory — a theory that promised to stitch all of nature’s forces into a single, tightly woven mathematical tapestry. But as had happened before and would happen again, closer scrutiny revealed flaws that sent Einstein back to […]
If OPEC follows through on the talk that it will cut oil production by a million barrels a day, it will send a clear signal that the cartel feels the world can handle $60 oil.But it could also undermine prices in the long run, by encouraging investments in conservation and alternative energy sources as well […]
Unbelievable as it may sound, Saudi Arabia is practically applauding the 22% plunge in global oil prices since July. On Sept. 19, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi called a price of about $60 per barrel “reasonable.” Analysts think the Saudis could even live with a price in the mid-$50’s per barrel. “The Saudi price target […]
1930s
Researchers believe that sometime in the 1930s a form of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) jumped to humans who butchered or ate chimpanzee bush meat in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The virus becomes HIV-1 the most widespread form found today
1959
The world’s first known case of AIDS has been traced to a sample of blood plasma […]
A drug being developed to fight bird flu and seasonal flu helps animals to survive H5N1 avian flu infection, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. said on Saturday.
The drug, called peramivir, protected mice and ferrets, which are considered the species closest to humans in terms of susceptibility to influenza.
The result, reported to the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents […]
An experiment to reconstruct the deadly 1918 flu virus has given a new insight into how the infection took hold.
Scientists discovered a severe immune system reaction was triggered when mice were infected with the recreated virus.
The US team believe the extreme immune response could have provoked the body to begin killing its own cells, making […]
Global temperatures are dangerously close to the highest ever estimated to have occurred in the past million years, scientists reported today.
In a study that analyzed temperatures around the globe, researchers found that Earth has been warming rapidly, nearly 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit (0.2 degrees Celsius) in the last 30 years.
“The average surface temperature is 15, maybe […]
Nearly seven of 10 Americans favor nuclear energy and 68 percent support building a new reactor at the existing nuclear power plant closest to where they live, according to a recent public opinion poll conducted for the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Regionally, 70 percent of respondents in the Northeast and Midwest favor the use of nuclear energy, […]
The discovery that a bizarre particle travels between the real world of matter and the spooky realm of antimatter 3 trillion times a second may open the door to a new era of physics, Fermilab researchers announced Monday.
The incredibly rapid commuting rate of the B sub s meson particle had been predicted by the Standard […]
California filed a global warming lawsuit on Wednesday against Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and three other automakers, charging that greenhouse gases from their vehicles have cost the state millions of dollars.
State Attorney General Bill Lockyer said the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California was the first of […]
String theory is on the ropes. After decades of prominence as the key to physics’ elusive “theory of everything,” challengers say the hypothesis is unraveling.
Why? Because there haven’t been experiments to prove it — and there don’t seem to be any on the horizon.
“The interplay with experiments is essential, and string theory just doesn’t have […]
Warren E. Buffet, the billionaire investor and philanthropist, pledged $50 million on Tuesday to help set up an international nuclear fuel bank that aspiring powers could turn to for reactor fuel instead of making it on their own.Mr. Buffett’s aim is to curb the risks of nuclear proliferation by providing an alternative to the kind […]
Scientists have discovered a potential reason to explain why the H5N1 strain of bird flu is so much more deadly to people than standard human flus.
A team in Vietnam compared people infected with the different flus.
The Nature Medicine research found that the bird flu virus triggers a massive inflammatory response, which often proved fatal.
A UK […]
Years ago, engineers for the federal government here studied hydrogen for its bomb-boosting capabilities. Now, scientists are working toward developing an economy that runs on the element.
“Our people did indeed help win the Cold War,” said Fred Humes, director of the Economic Development Partnership in Aiken and Edgefield counties. “And with the capability we have […]
For years people have talked of fuel cells as as a salvation from our current oil-based economy to a new, enlightened hydrogen-based economy where pollution from energy will be a thing of the past. While this, like many visions of the future, is a bit grandiose, it is based in fact. Fuel cells are operate […]
The world should wake up to the dangers of the mass production of biofuels, which are increasingly seen as a major solution to global warming, according to Professor Sir Peter Crane, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Extensive production of biofuel crops, such as oil palms, could destroy remaining areas of rainforest and bring about […]
New research is raising concerns that global warming may be triggering a self-perpetuating climate time bomb trapped in once-frozen permafrost.
As the Earth warms, greenhouse gases once stuck in the long-frozen soil are bubbling into the atmosphere in much larger amounts than previously anticipated, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Nature.
Methane trapped in a special […]
IBM has snagged a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy to build a 1.6 petaflops hybrid supercomputer for the Los Alamos National Laboratory by the end of 2007 or early 2008. The supercomputer, code-named “Roadrunner” after the New Mexico state bird, is expected to be the fastest supercomputer in the world when it is […]
Russia could control up to 25 percent of the global nuclear-fuel services market, Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of the Federal Nuclear Power Agency (Rosatom), said on Monday, Sept. 4.
“Russia believes that 25 percent of the world’s market in nuclear fuel-cycle services, including uranium enrichment, is an optimal share,” Kiriyenko said, quoted by RIA Novosti. “Technically […]
Air from the oldest ice core confirms human activity has increased the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere to levels not seen for hundreds of thousands of years, scientists said on Monday.
Bubbles of air in the 800,000-year-old ice, drilled in the Antarctic, show levels of CO2 changing with the climate. But the present […]
NASA on Thursday gave a multibillion dollar contract to build a manned lunar spaceship to Lockheed Martin Corp., the aerospace leader that usually builds unmanned rockets.
The last time NASA awarded a manned spaceship contract to Lockheed Martin of Bethesda, Maryland, was in 1996 for a spaceplane that was supposed to replace the space shuttle. NASA […]
The lines between seasons are blurring and summer is getting longer in North America, a new study indicates.
Tracing backwards every known rainfall event on the globe, for a 25-year period ending in 2003, scientists wanted to determine where the moisture that supplied each rainfall came from.
While doing that, they found remarkable trends in what they […]
Some commercial sex workers in Kenya who apparently are immune to HIV might be carrying a gene that protects them from contracting the virus, according to a study presented last week at the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto, the EastAfrican reports. The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Manitoba in Canada, was […]
For more than 70 years, astronomers, cosmologists and physicists have known that ordinary matter must be surrounded by vast quantities of an invisible substance–not substantial enough to collide with atoms or stars but massive enough to keep galaxies from flying apart. Dubbed dark matter, the mysterious stuff has eluded detection through any means other than […]
Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have conducted successful test flights of a hydrogen-powered unmanned aircraft believed to be the largest to fly on a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell using compressed hydrogen.
The fuel-cell system that powers the 22-foot wingspan aircraft generates only 500 watts. “That raises a lot of eyebrows,” said Adam Broughton, a […]
Nobody in the United States has started building a nuclear power plant in more than three decades. Mayo A. Shattuck III could be the first.
As the chief executive of Constellation Energy, a utility holding company in Baltimore that already operates five nuclear reactors, Mr. Shattuck is convinced that nuclear power is on the verge of […]
Propelled by the twin pressures of global warming and high energy costs, wind energy’s growth is picking up speed. In the U.S., wind farms were the second-largest source of new power generation last year, after natural gas, according to the Energy Information Administration.
But as companies and individuals chart out wind projects along coastlines, prairies, and […]
The XVI international AIDS conference opened in Toronto on Sunday 13 August. Its theme of ‘Time to deliver’ highlights the urgent need for the rapid delivery of HIV prevention and treatment services.
The XVI international AIDS conference opened with the usual array of politicians, philanthropists and show biz personalities. But behind the glitz lurks a deadly […]
Thanks to a new and improved imaging instrument at the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), scientists now can conduct detailed surveillance on the comings and goings of water inside hydrogen fuel cells—a piece of intelligence key to making the technology practical for powering future automobiles.
With visualization powers 10 times better than […]
At the 16th International AIDS Conference, experts warned that tuberculosis may undermine much of the progress that’s been made with anti-retroviral drugs. They say urgent action is needed to prevent the deaths of 250,000 people living with HIV/AIDS every year. Anti-retroviral drugs now have a 10-year history of prolonging the lives of those living with […]
In “The Hydrogen Economy,” a best-seller written by Jeremy Rifkin, the author envisions the dawn of a new economy powered by hydrogen as a “forever fuel” that will end the fossil-fuel era.
The renowned U.S. economist said hydrogen never runs out and produces no harmful pollutants, freeing people from a looming oil shortage and global warming […]
As we yawn and open our eyes in the morning, the brain stem sends little puffs of nitric oxide to another part of the brain, the thalamus, which then directs it elsewhere.
Like a computer booting up its operating system before running more complicated programs, the nitric oxide triggers certain functions that set the stage for […]
A man walks along the inside of a circle of chess tables, glancing at each for two or three seconds before making his move. On the outer rim, dozens of amateurs sit pondering their replies until he completes the circuit. The year is 1909, the man is José Raúl Capablanca of Cuba, and the result […]
Scientists say the oxygen-starved “dead zone” along the Pacific Coast that is causing massive crab and fish die-offs is worse than initially thought.
Scientists say weather, not pollution, appears to be the culprit, and no relief is in sight. However, some say there is no immediate sign yet of long-term damage to the crab fishery.
Oregon State […]
People in the United States are much less likely to accept Darwin’s idea that humans and apes share a common ancestor than adults in other Western nations, a number of surveys show.
A new study of those surveys suggests that the main reason for this lies in a unique confluence of religion, politics, and the public […]
The meltdown of Greenland’s ice sheet is speeding up, satellite measurements show.
Data from a US space agency (Nasa) satellite show that the melting rate has accelerated since 2004.
If the ice cap were to completely disappear, global sea levels would rise by 6.5m (21 feet).
Most of the ice is being lost from eastern Greenland, a US […]
Solar cells made from spinach. Algae-based biofuel fattened on greenhouse gas. Plasma-powered turbo engines. These are just some of the technologies being developed by a Manhattan Project-style research effort for new energy technologies at MIT.
Scientists at MIT are undertaking a big, ambitious, university-wide program to develop innovative energy tech under the auspices of the school’s […]
Over the past several decades, the promise of the “car of tomorrow” has remained unfulfilled, while the problems it was supposed to solve have only intensified. The average price of a gallon of gas is higher than at any time since the early 1980s. The Middle East seems more volatile than ever. And even climate […]
James A. Van Allen, the physicist who made the first major scientific discovery of the early space age, the Earth-circling radiation belts that bear his name, and sent spacecraft instruments to observe the outer reaches of the solar system, died yesterday in Iowa City. He was 91.
The cause was heart failure, family members said. Dr. […]
More than 5 million vehicles on U.S. roads today can run on ethanol - a renewable fuel that comes from corn - as well as gasoline. General Motors (Charts), Ford (Charts) and DaimlerChrysler (Charts) recently announced plans to double their annual production of so-called flex fuel vehicles to two million cars and trucks by 2010.
It’s […]
A significant advance that might have potential to reverse global warming has been developed, but yet to be commercialised on a large scale.
The technology provides a biochemical means to safely scrub CO2 from concentrated sources of the gas, like smokestacks of numerous types. The advance was enabled by isolation of the enzyme in animals that […]
General Motors is planning a fall 2007 launch for its highly anticipated so-called “dual-mode” or two-mode gas/electric hybrid version of the 2007 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra full-size pickup trucks.
Company insiders tell Inside Line the hybrid version of the trucks will see a 25 percent improvement in fuel economy over the conventional trucks, with […]
SAVING SPECIES The Alliance to Rescue Civilization differs from other so-called doomsday projects. It envisions a lunar base where, in the event of global catastrophe, humans could carry on, protecting DNA samples of life on Earth and maintaining a bank of human knowledge.
When the dust settles after World War III, or World War IX, humanity […]
Global warming has loaded the dice in favor of heat waves and may be to blame for the scorching weather across much of the United States and Europe this summer, according to several of the world’s leading climate scientists.
The U.S has already seen two severe heat waves this summer, and a third is currently frying […]
A spacecraft taking off from a private West Texas spaceport being bankrolled and developed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos would take off vertically, but unlike NASA’s space shuttle would also land vertically, according to an environmental study that offers a glimpse into the secretive plans.The craft would hit an altitude of about 325,000 feet — […]
It’s a dream that’s been pursued for years by governments, energy companies and automakers so far without success: Mass-producing affordable hydrogen-powered cars that spew just clean water from their tailpipes.
So Shanghai’s Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies decided to start small. Really small.
This month, it will begin sales of a tiny hydrogen fuel-cell car, complete with its […]
SAN FRANCISCO–Next year fuel cells could take a significant step forward, according to a CEO of one of the leading manufacturers of the technology.
In 2007, the U.S. military will conduct field tests of hybrid power systems, which combine lithium ion batteries and methanol fuel cells, Peng Lim, CEO of MTI Micro Fuel Cells, said during […]
Toyota sees a future in plugging in vehicles - instead of simply pulling in for gas. Already a leader in the hybrid market with its Prius sedan, Toyota Motor Corp. plans to develop a hybrid vehicle that will run locally on batteries charged by a typical 120-volt outlet before switching over to a gasoline engine […]
Two astronauts ventured into the cargo bay of the space shuttle Discovery today and tested techniques that might be used to repair damage to a shuttle’s heat shield in emergencies.
The astronauts, Piers J. Sellers and Michael E. Fossum, left Discovery’s Quest airlock with caulk guns and putty knives and worked their way to the back […]
On the afternoon of August 14, 2003, electricity failed to arrive in New York City, plunging the eight million inhabitants of the Big Apple–along with 40 million other people throughout the northeastern U.S. and Ontario–into a tense night of darkness. After one power plant in Ohio had shut down, elevated power loads overheated high-voltage lines, […]
EAST DUBUQUE, Ill. — The coal in the ground in Illinois alone has more energy than all the oil in Saudi Arabia. The technology to turn that coal into fuel for cars, homes and factories is proven. And at current prices, that process could be at the vanguard of a big, new industry.
Such promise has […]
For most of us, any physics is new physics.Having stopped paying attention somewhere back around “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” or the discovery that you can make sparks by shuffling your feet on the carpet and then touching a doorknob (or another person), we amateurs respond with the same glazed […]
The Civil Rights Bill - one of the most important piece of legislation in American history - has become law.
US President Lyndon B Johnson signed the bill creating equal rights in voting, education, public accommodations, union membership and in federally assisted programmes - regardless of race, colour, religion or national origin.
The bill has caused much […]
There needs to be a “genuine and meaningful” public debate on whether the UK should keep its nuclear weapons, the Commons defence committee has said.
Its MPs said the arsenal “could serve no useful or practical purpose” in defeating international terrorism.
This is “the most pressing threat currently facing the UK”, they said.
They added the Ministry of […]
The numbers are frightening. They indicate that the flow of scientists and engineers graduating from American universities is slowing to a trickle. At the same time, schools in China and India have opened the proverbial floodgates.
The National Academies shined a spotlight on the figures in its influential “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” report. According to […]
In the past few decades, a handful of scientists have come up with big, futuristic ways to fight global warming: Build sunshades in orbit to cool the planet. Tinker with clouds to make them reflect more sunlight back into space. Trick oceans into soaking up more heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
Their proposals were relegated to the fringes […]
By most objective measures, the United States is the undisputed world leader in science and innovation, whether it’s funding for research and development, the number of PhD students it graduates or its share of the world’s patents. For the world’s wealthiest nation, this is hardly a remarkable feat. What is remarkable is that the US […]
Climate researchers at Purdue University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology separately reported new evidence yesterday supporting the idea that global warming is causing stronger hurricanes.
That claim is the subject of a long-running scientific dispute. And while the new research supports one side, neither the authors nor other climate experts say it is conclusive.
In one […]
Decision-making software on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 spacecraft is wading through copious amounts of data to determine which information should be downloaded and studied first, saving researchers at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., both time and money.
The program, known as Autonomous Sciencecraft software, looks at very specific elements tracked by EO-1, such as volcanic […]
Scientists have paved the way for the first permanently manned base on the Moon by developing a way to ’squeeze’ oxygen out of lunar soil.
Nasa experts say the technique will allow astronauts of the future to create their own supplies of the gas instead of transporting it all from Earth.
The space agency plans to take […]
At its core, the economic surge in India and China comes down to brains. The industries driving the region’s challenge to American leadership — communications, information technology, biotech and the like — can’t thrive without a steady supply of highly educated, intellectually flexible workers.
This is where the United States is falling behind. “Most U.S. high […]
How’s this for a green idea: Remove carbon dioxide, a gas that many scientists tie to global warming, by having algae turn it into clean fuel?
It’s actually more than an idea, and the state of New York along with independent power producer NRG Energy and GreenFuel Technologies will be testing the technology.
In a partnership announced […]
Low participation in math and science activities by girls is keeping them from achieving their full potential and weakening the nation’s ability to compete, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said Monday.
“We need definitive insights into what goes wrong, when and why,” Spellings said. She asked her department’s Institute of Education Sciences to review existing research and […]
A robotic NASA spacecraft designed to rendezvous with an orbiting satellite instead crashed into its target, according to a summary of the investigation released Monday.
Investigators blamed the collision on faulty navigational data that caused the DART spacecraft to believe that it was backing away from its target when it was actually bearing down on it.
“The […]
A small company in Madison, WI has developed a novel way to generate hydrogen cheaply and cleanly from biomass.
In the next couple of weeks, the technology, developed by Virent Energy Systems, will be used for the first time to continuously produce electricity from a small 10-kilowatt generator at the company’s facility in Madison. The unit […]
Scientists at The University of Manchester have uncovered the first evidence of seawater deep inside the Earth shedding new light on the fate of the planet’s oceans, according to research published in Nature (May 11, 2006).
For years geologists have debated whether seawater is subducted (absorbed) into the deep Earth or whether there is a ’subduction […]
China’s summer could be hotter and stormier than normal and the country could be hit up to nine typhoons from June, state media said on Wednesday, citing the country’s top meteorologists.
This week, violent rainstorms triggered floods in the southwestern city of Chongqing, killing one person and forcing the evacuation of more than 23,000 others, the […]
Carbon nanotubes are the hottest topic in physics, according to a new way of ranking the popularity of different scientific fields. Nanowires are second, followed by quantum dots, fullerenes, giant magnetoresistance, M-theory and quantum computation. The new ranking has been developed by Michael Banks, a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Solid-State Physics […]
Nanotubes, tiny hollow carbon filaments about one ten-thousandth the diameter of a human hair, are already famed as one of the most versatile materials ever discovered. A hundred times as strong as steel and one-sixth as dense, able to conduct electricity better than copper or to substitute for silicon in semiconductor chips, carbon nanotubes have […]
Hybrid cars that run on both gasoline and electricity are likely to be popularized within the next two or three years. This is because the development of the automobile to run by fuel cells which are said to be the “ultimate eco-friendly car” is hitting a snag and will be delayed much more than originally […]
Huge turbines mounted on floating platforms could make wind power competitive with fossil-fuel-generated electricity. These advanced wind turbines, which are in development, could be situated far from the shore, too, avoiding battles with onshore residents who object to the presence of large wind farms.
GE has announced a $27 million partnership with the U.S. Department of […]
High oil prices and concerns about the long-term availability of oil have U.S. government officials singing the praises of hydrogen fuel cells as a solution to our nation’s transportation energy problem. But fuel cells, while a promising technology, could take more than 50 years to have a significant impact on gasoline consumption, according to estimates […]
The amount of accessible oil worldwide could eventually be increased by roughly 30 percent with the help of new drilling, imaging, and oil extraction technologies, including the use of microbes, say MIT researchers. Theoretically, this number could be even higher; in a best-case scenario, the amount of oil that could be produced would double.
On average, […]
A nagging difference in temperature readings that had raised questions about global warming has been resolved, a panel of scientists reported Tuesday.
“This significant discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been identified and corrected,” researchers said in the first of 21 assessment reports planned by the U.S. Climate Change […]
Simulations on a supercomputer have allowed Nasa scientists to understand finally the pattern of gravitational waves produced by merging black holes.
The work should help the worldwide effort that is currently underway to make the first detection of these “ripples” in the fabric of space-time.
Ultra-sensitive equipment set up in the US and Europe is expected to […]
Indications of a change in the proton-to-electron mass ratio have shown up in comparisons of the spectra of hydrogen gas as recorded in a lab with spectra of light coming from hydrogen clouds at the distance of quasars. This is another of those tests of so-called physical constants that might not be absolutely constant. For […]
In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That’s the conviction that inspired Greenpeace’s first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my […]
Holographic data storage pioneer InPhase Technologies, has announced that it has demonstrated the highest data density of any commercial technology by recording 515 gigabits of data per square inch. Holographic storage is a departure from existing recording methods because it takes advantage of volumetric efficiencies rather than only recording on the surface of the material […]
Citing sensitive information, NASA said Friday it will not publicly release its official report on the failure of a spacecraft during a mission to rendezvous with a Pentagon satellite without human help.The 70-page document on the DART spacecraft mishap contains details protected by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, said space agency spokesman Michael Braukus.
But […]
Humans cooperate on all sorts of issues and tasks, but every so often a member of the group fails to pull his weight. If such free riding is allowed to proliferate, cooperation itself can break down. A new study suggests that the threat of penalty is the key to successful cooperation.
Bettina Rockenbach of the University […]
The 10th planet turns out to be barely larger than tiny Pluto, a new photograph by the Hubble Space Telescope shows.
The object — still unnamed more than a year after its discovery but tagged with the temporary designation 2003 UB313 and nicknamed Xena by the discoverer — covered an area only 1.5 pixels wide in […]
For a vision of war, it was almost elegant. The smoke and stink and deafening crack of munitions would be replaced by invisible beams of focused light. Modified 747 jets, equipped with laser weapons, would blast ballistic missiles while they were still hundreds of miles from striking our soil. “Directed-energy” cannons would intercept incoming rockets […]
NASA has announced its intention to crash a probe into the surface of the Moon to analyse the resulting plume of material for possible water ice.
The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite is part of the agency’s raft of planned robotic missions slated for 2008 to 2016, dedicated to studying the lunar surface as a […]
As NASA marks 25 years of shuttle flight this week, the space agency is looking ahead to its next spaceship to reach for the orbit and the Moon.
The space shuttle Columbia ushered in NASA’s shuttle era on April 12, 1981, when it launched spaceward with STS-1 astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen aboard.
A quarter century […]
What happens if you let a drop of water fall gently onto a water-repelling surface? Physicists in France and the Netherlands who tried the experiment were surprised by what they saw. They found that a violent, ultra-fine jet of water emerges from the drop, moving at up to 40 times the drop’s initial impact speed. […]
No one really expected the first space shuttle to fly on April 12, 25 years ago.
It was only the second countdown for Columbia. A computer glitch scrubbed the first attempt two days earlier. After struggling through the ship’s creation, workers and astronauts alike were sure several more counts were in the works.
Then it got down […]
Two supermassive black holes have been found to be spiraling toward a merger, astronomers said today.
The collision will create a single super-supermassive black hole capable of swallowing material equal to billions of stars, the researchers said.
Mergers between black holes are thought to be one way they grow. A handful of similar setups have been observed […]
Archeologists have discovered a huge 1,500-year-old pre-Hispanic pyramid in a working class district of Mexico City after digging into a hill used every year to depict the crucifixion of Christ.
The unnamed pyramid has the same sized base as the giant Pyramid of the Moon at the famous archeological site of Teotihuacan, an hour’s drive northeast […]
Computer simulations shed new light on why Mercury is a very dense planet.
The innermost world has long been thought to be rich in iron, suggesting its lighter, outer layers were probably lost in a huge collision.
Modelling work by scientists from the University of Bern, Switzerland, strongly supports this theory.
It shows how much of the material […]
STEVE JONES doesn’t have a workshop, exactly, for his miniature space elevator; he is designing it in his dorm room and in four labs scattered across the University of British Columbia.
He doesn’t have a staff, either; a collection of friends and fellow space enthusiasts volunteer to help. And his budget, in the low five figures, […]
A disk of potentially planet-forming debris has been found around a pulsar about 13,000 light-years from Earth, scientists announced today.
The debris is most likely material that has fallen back toward the star after a supernova, or star explosion. The material could clump together to form planets, astronomers say, but such planets would be unlikely to […]
Hybrid vehicles are set to go from green to mean in 2006, with a fleet of new models that tout power, performance and luxury alongside fuel efficiency.
U.S. drivers will see at least four new hybrid models this year from Toyota, Saturn, Nissan and Lexus, and older models from Honda are also getting an upgrade. While […]
Researchers hoping to ease America’s oil addiction are turning sawdust and wood chips into bio-oil, a thick black liquid that could become a green substitute for many petroleum products.
Bio-oil can be made from almost any organic material, including agricultural and forest waste like corn stalks and scraps of bark. Converting the raw biomass into bio-oil […]
Advances in methanol synthesis, coupled with improved fuel cell technology, could make it a viable alternative to gasoline
Hydrogen has been getting plenty of hype as a potential replacement transportation fuel, for cutting carbon dioxide emissions and reducing dependence on fossil fuels. But methanol would be far better than the more reactive and volatile hydrogen, argues […]
As if plain old quantum entanglement weren’t strange enough for modern physics, now physicists are entangling already entangled particles. In entanglement swapping, one particle of an entangled pair becomes entangled with a third particle, which itself becomes entangled with the other particle in the first pair, even though the two never interact. Here’s how physicists […]
Scientists at an IBM research cantre in Silicon Valley have created a magnetism-manipulating tool suited to building molecular computers, the company revealed on Thursday.
The development was touted as a step toward making computers based on the spin of electrons and atoms.
“We have a tool in place to develop the product of the future,” said German-born […]
The innovative Saab BioPower Hybrid Concept, making its world premiere at the Stockholm Motor Show (March 30 - April 9, 2006), delivers zero fossil CO2 emissions, enhanced performance and a range of energy-saving features by combining the use of pure bioethanol fuel and electric power generation for the first time. As the world’s first fossil-free […]
Tourists and scientists are gathering at spots around the world for a total solar eclipse Wednesday that will sweep northeast from Brazil to Mongolia, blotting out the Sun across swathes of of the world’s poorest lands.
Day will turn briefly to dark twilight in the eclipse’s path as the Moon comes between the Earth and the […]
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, long considered the father of the Internet, is a Distinguished Chartered member of BCS, is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium, senior researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and professor of computer science at Southampton ECS. Here are his thoughts on software patents, […]
A new jet engine designed to fly at seven times the speed of sound appears to have been successfully tested.
The scramjet engine, the Hyshot III, was launched at Woomera, 500km north of Adelaide in Australia, on the back of a two stage Terrier-Orion rocket.
Once 314km up, the Hyshot III fell back to Earth, reaching speeds […]
