The Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association is the first team to submit a due date for sending a robot to the moon in the Google Lunar X competition. The flight will be launched within three months and if the team
A Finnish study of identical twins has found that physical inactivity and acquired obesity can impair expression of the genes which help the cells produce energy. The findings suggest that lifestyle, more than heredity, contributes to insulin resistance in people
The net could see its biggest transformation in decades if plans to open up the address system are passed. The net's regulators will vote on Thursday to decide if the strict rules on so-called top level domain names, such as
Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) genes produce proteins that are crucial in fighting pathogen assault. Researchers from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) characterized genetic variation and detected more than one MHC class
Its official: We're not going to be blown up, smothered in stranglets, sucked into a black hole or turned into ooze by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). To put any concerns to rest, CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research)
In work that solves a long-standing mystery in neuroscience, researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have shown for the first time that star-shaped brain cells called astrocytes--previously considered bit players by most neuroscientists--make noninvasive brain scans possible.
Milner Motors, an American company founded by James Milner, has developed the ElectriCar, a 4-door, 4-seat, 4-wheel, plug-in hybrid electric car. This lightweight, strong car is designed to be as aerodynamic as possible and can operate for two hours on
When Olympic sprinters dash down the track in Beijing this August, the fastest athlete may not take home the gold medal. Current start-gun technology gives athletes on the inside lanes an unfair advantage right off the blocks. Although officials are
A tiny but powerful engine that propels the bacterium Bacillus subtilis through liquids is disengaged from the corkscrew-like flagellum by a protein clutch, Indiana University Bloomington and Harvard University scientists have learned. Scientists have long known what drives the flagellum
Child's play among wild chimpanzees may spread deadly outbreaks to the rest of the family. A 22-year study of respiratory disease epidemics among chimps has found that death and disease spikes when numerous chimps neared 2 and a half years
The infectious romp that the measles virus takes through the body doesn't need to involve the airways, as was previously thought. Instead, the virus prefers to replicate in immune cells. This finding potentially paves the way for new and better
When Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon, he uttered unforgettable words. But the next visitor to roam the lunar landscape may send back e-mail instead. Welcome to a new kind of space race, where
An international group of conservation workers is seeking to standardize the language of their discipline. The team believes that common terms for conservation's problems and tools are necessary if the field is to become truly scientific. The new system is
Ask any scientist to name Earth's most abundant source of energy, and the answer comes quickly: sunlight. In one hour, the sun strikes Earth with enough energy to power the entire planet for a year. "There's nothing that compares to
A new NASA-French space agency oceanography satellite launched today from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on a globe-circling voyage to continue charting sea level, a vital indicator of global climate change. The mission will return a vast amount of new
Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it. "It must be
Mozilla has downplayed a threat posed by the first vulnerability reported for Firefox 3.0, telling users that the risk is "minimal." "There is no public exploit, the details are private, and so the risk to users is minimal," Window Snyder,
AMD has recently notified its partners it is developing a processor to enter the low-cost PC market alongside Intel's Atom and Via Technologies' Nano CPUs. The new CPUs will be officially launched by the end of this year, while related
Sixty years ago the "modern computer" was born in a lab in Manchester. The Small Scale Experimental Machine, or "Baby", was the first to contain memory which could store a program. The room-sized computer's ability to carry out different tasks
Boeing Boeing has hit a critical milestone on the way to getting its 787 Dreamliner up in the air. The company today said that it has powered on the first 787, preparing the plane for a complex series of tasks
