A Year in Space
Washington DC (SPX) Mar 30, 2015 -
Two humans are getting ready to say farewell to Earth for nearly 12 months. On March 27, 2015, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian Cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will launch to the International Space Station, beginning a one-year mission in space, testing the limits of human research, space exploration and the human spirit.
Most expeditions to the space station last four to six months. By ...
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Russia announces plan to build new space station with NASA
Moscow (AFP) March 28, 2015 -
Russia on Saturday announced initial plans to build a new orbital space station together with NASA to replace the International Space Station (ISS), which is set to operate until 2024.
Russia and NASA recently agreed to keep operating and financing the ISS until 2024, but future joint space projects have remained in doubt, as relations between Russia and the US have plunged to post-Cold War ...
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Manganese speeds up honey bees
St. Louis MO (SPX) Mar 30, 2015 -
Asked to name one way people have changed the environment, many people would probably say "global warming." But that's really just the start of it.
People burn fossil fuels, but they also mine and manufacture. It's who we are: Homo fabricus: man the maker. And as a side effect of our ingenuity and craft we have taken many metals originally buried safely in Earth's depths and strewn them ab ...
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Lightning injures 52 at Ecuador traffic police school
Quito (AFP) March 27, 2015 -
A lightning strike injured 52 people at a training school for traffic police near Quito, with 15 briefly hospitalized, officials said Friday.
"The candidates were in formation to enter the dining hall when they were struck by shock waves from lighting that hit the premises," the Metropolitan Transit Agency said in a statement.
Thirty-seven were treated at the scene of the incident late T ...
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Vietnam rice boom heaping pressure on farmers, environment
Can Tho, Vietnam (AFP) March 29, 2015 -
Rice farmer Nguyen Hien Thien is so busy growing his crops that he has never even visited Can Tho, a town only a few miles from his farm in the southern Mekong Delta.
"When I was a child, we grew one crop of rice per year - now it's three. It's a lot of work," 60-year-old Thien, who has been farming since he was a child, told AFP on the edge of his small paddy field.
Experts say Vietnam ...
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Did monkey business shape human society?
Buffalo, N.Y. (UPI) Mar 27, 2015 -
In the jungles of Sulawesi, an Indonesian island, primatologist Maura Tyrrell crouches to study the behavior of a crested black macaque, an endangered Old World monkey species. Tyrrell believes the monkeys - highly intelligent, playful and engaging - can shed light on the evolution of early human social structures.
Specifically, Tyrrell and her ongoing research suggests coalition-buil ...
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Future US Navy: robotic sub-hunters, deepsea pods
Washington (AFP) March 28, 2015 -
The robotic revolution that transformed warfare in the skies will soon extend to the deep sea, with underwater spy "satellites," drone-launching pods on the ocean floor and unmanned ships hunting submarines.
Officials at the US military's research agency outlined new programs this week that include a number of potentially groundbreaking technologies that could alter the way naval battles are ...
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