Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to improve climate change seems paradoxical, but Stanford researchers argue that new tech and the promise of bottom line profits could coax big industry into getting greener. A new study proposes a more pragmatic approach to greenhouse gases, along with a financial lure to maximize compliance.
NASA has revealed the spacecraft that the new Mars rover will use to travel to the red planet in 2020, as the US space agency continues to pave the way for an eventual manned mission. Mars 2020 will see a brand new rover set loose on the surface of the planet, complete with a toolkit of all-new instrumentation to do research.
Most of us take time for granted and presume that seconds are just, well, seconds. For some applications in science and technology, however, being precise down to the millisecond can make a world of difference. For that kind of precision, atomic clocks are the name of the game and the NIST's in-development clock has a beating hart so small that a coffee bean would stand tall beside it.
Forget outer space or the deep ocean or even the quantum realm. Our bodies are a microcosm of its own, with many parts and processes we still don't completely understand. One of those is our body's own immune system that protects us from diseases. Its most lethal weapon, the T cells, are also unfortunately also the cause of some life-threatening diseases. Doctors are now seeing, for the first time, the T-cells' "safety test" training recorded on video which can hopefully inform them how to properly train these killers.
Last month, a spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station carrying, among other cargo, small cube-shaped robots called Astrobees. The devices are designed to operate in the space lab's unique microgravity environment, offering assistance to the astronauts located on the ISS. In its most recent update on the matter, NASA shared an image of the Astrobee robot 'Bumble' on the ISS alongside some details about how it and its 'Honey' companion are operating.
Food scientists are developing a milk carton suitable for a future in which most people own a smartphone, Cornell University has announced. The cartons would reduce food waste by helping consumers tell whether their milk (and, presumably, other beverages) are still in good quality and suitable for consumption. In comparison, existing 'Best by' dates are often imprecise.
NASA has published the first batch of results from the New Horizons' Kuiper Belt object flyby that took place on January 1, 2019. Only about 10-percent of the data from that flyby has been transmitted back to researchers on Earth, but the findings have been shared in a study published on May 17. According to the space agency, the object -- which is nicknamed Ultima Thule -- is 'far more complex than expected.'
Genetics may explain why some people are self-avowed dog lovers, according to a new study. The research found that dog ownership has a heritable component, meaning a person's genetic makeup may heavily influence whether they choose to own a dog. Uppsala University researchers behind the study describe the genetic influence as both 'significant' and surprising.
SpaceX has its Falcon 9 sitting on the launch pad waiting for the go to launch. Earlier this week we saw an image of the Falcon 9 packed with the first 60 of SpaceX's Starlink satellites. That launch was delayed due to wind shear from May 15th to May 16th.
Begbugs are one of the parasites that people find most disturbing, right up there with head lice. Scientists thought for a long time that the first hosts for parasitic bedbugs were bats indicating that bedbugs had been around for 50-60 million years. New research shows that bedbugs are much older than previously thought and may have crawled the planet with the dinosaurs. Researchers from an international team, including scientists from the University of Sheffield, have compared the DNA of dozens of bedbug species.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge and colleagues from Jiangnan University in China have developed electronic components that can be directly incorporated into fabrics that could be used for flexible circuits, healthcare monitoring, energy conversion, and other applications. The researchers have shown how graphene and related materials can be directly incorporated into fabrics to produce charge storage elements like capacitors.
NASA has had a spacecraft orbiting Mars called the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter or MRO since March 10, 2006. The spacecraft has been circling the planet at about 2 miles per second and collecting daily science data about the planet's surface and atmosphere. NASA has announced a milestone for the MRO that was reached this week.