Science - SlashGear

‘Science’ Stories

Qualcomm Tricorder X prize offers $10M to inventor of real tricorder

Shane McGlaun, Jan 12th 2012 Discuss [1]

The stuff of science fiction decades ago has a way of becoming science fact as time rolls on. Sometimes what it takes to get engineers and researchers into the mood to invent is a nice competition along the lines of the Ansari X Prize that resulted in the tech that Virgin Galactic is using in its future fleet of spacecraft to take passengers into space to enjoy weightlessness. Read The Full Story

Doomsday Clock clicks minute closer to global destruction

Chris Davies, Jan 12th 2012 Discuss [18]

Oh dear; while we were marveling at big TVs, tiny phones and all the other excess CES 2012 has to offer, scientists decided we were another step closer to doomsday. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists shifted their Doomsday Clock one minute closer to midnight this week, a symbolic warning that humanity is one step closer to global disaster. Pushing us to the precipice are "inadequate progress on nuclear weapons reduction and proliferation, and continuing inaction on climate change." Read The Full Story

Russian space agency director suggests a weapon could have caused the failure of Phobos-Grunt

Shane McGlaun, Jan 11th 2012 Discuss [2]

If you follow science and space, one of the most glorious failures in a long time was the Russian Phobos-Grunt probe. The massive 13-ton spacecraft was hefted off the ground on an intended mission to reach Mars for study of one of the red planet's moons. Sadly, for the Russian space program the spacecraft failed to make it out of low Earth orbit. Read The Full Story

NASA discovers Tatooine-like planet possibly with habitable moon

Shane McGlaun, Jan 11th 2012 Discuss [2]

NASA discovered a very interesting new planet using the Kepler spacecraft that has been dubbed Kepler-16b last fall. The new planet orbits two suns making it similar to Luke Skywalker's home world of Tatooine from Star Wars in that it orbits two suns. The catch is that the planet itself isn’t the potentially habitable location; rather it's a moon that might be orbiting the Tatooine-like planet. Read The Full Story

NASA parks Mars rover Opportunity for the Martian winter

Shane McGlaun, Jan 9th 2012 Discuss [3]

In cold climates, here on Earth around the US lots of folks have to park some of their vehicles for the long and cold winter. On Mars, the same story is true where each winter the Opportunity rover has to seek out a place and park for the winter. This year NASA has found a very nice place for Opportunity to sit out the winter. Read The Full Story

Stephen Hawking misses 70th birthday celebration due to illness

Shane McGlaun, Jan 9th 2012 Discuss [3]

One of the most famous scientists in the world is Professor Stephen Hawking. The wheelchair-bound Hawking suffers from the disease commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He was diagnosed at 21 and at the time people afflicted with the condition weren't expected to live more than two years after diagnosis. Hawking recently celebrated his 70th birthday. Read The Full Story

NeuVax E-75 cancer vaccine halves recurrence rate says US army

Chris Davies, Jan 8th 2012 Discuss [0]

US Army researchers may have found a vaccine that significantly reduces the recurrence of cancer and could, with more work, eventually help prevent colon, prostate and lung cancer altogether. The drug, currently known as E-75 or NeuVax, has been found to cut in half the recurrence rate in women who have recovered from breast cancer, The Daily reports, as well as seemingly proving effective across a far greater number of patients than existing cancer medication. Read The Full Story

Rebound Rumble pushes robotics development with will.i.am and Bill Clinton

Chris Davies, Jan 8th 2012 Discuss [2]

Robots playing basketball, with former US presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, along with will.i.am and Segway inventor Dean Kamen in the audience, sounds like the setup to a bizarre South Park joke, but it's actually the kick-off of Rebound Rumble. A brand new game designed to encourage robotic development, Rebound Rumble sets two alliances - each consisting of three independently controlled 'bots - against each other to score points through a cluster of basketball hoops. Read The Full Story

Chinese tackling human genome with NVIDIA GPUs

Christen McGregor, Jan 7th 2012 Discuss [0]

Analyzing data of the human genome is no small task. However, with the help of graphic chips, what once took genome sequencing centers days to complete, can be done in six hours. To accomplish this, BGI, a lab headquartered in Shenzhen, China, have given their servers a facelift with Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) built by Nvidia. That's right, the same hardware that outputs images onto personal computers around the world, could account for major advances in the medical field. Read The Full Story

See the ISS tonight in the Houston, Texas area with binoculars

Shane McGlaun, Jan 6th 2012 Discuss [0]

NASA has announced that you can see the ISS with a plain old pair of field binoculars tonight in certain parts of Texas. The ISS will be flying through the heavens over Houston, Texas at a distance of 242.8 miles above the surface. If you are in the area, you will be able to see the ISS with the naked eye, and you might even be able to make out details of the ISS with binoculars. Read The Full Story

Scientists stop the clock, making an event unseen

Christen McGregor, Jan 6th 2012 Discuss [1]

We've all seen the crazy antics in movies that would be nigh impossible to pull off in any other situation than a movie set. Tom Cruise's character in the latest Mission Impossible, Ethan Hunt, strolled into the Moskow Kremlin, set up a faux-transparency screen in a guarded hallway that concealed him and his partner. Now, imagine that sans the special screen used by Cruise's character; an entire event going unseen. Scientists at Cornell University have, albeit on a much smaller scale, allowed for just that. Read The Full Story

Hybrid sharks found in Australia result from interbreeding

Shane McGlaun, Jan 4th 2012 Discuss [17]

A team of scientists has discovered the first hybridized shark in the world off the coast of Australia. The shark appears to be the result of interbreeding that doesn't normally occur between the Australian Black-tip shark and the common black-tip. The Australian black-tip is only able to survive in the warmer tropical waters. Read The Full Story