Virgin space flights cleared for US take-off
Los Angeles (AFP) May 29, 2014 -
Richard Branson's dream of commercial space flights took a step nearer reality after Virgin Galactic signed a deal with US aviation authorities to let it blast paying customers into space, the company said Thursday.
The agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sets out how routine space missions from the Spaceport America base in the US state of New Mexico will be coordinated ...
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Velociraptor robot almost as fast as robotic rival Cheetah
Daejeon, South Korea (UPI) May 30, 2013 -
Luckily for Usain Bolt, robots aren't allowed to compete for gold medals. If they were, the new Velociraptor robot designed by researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, might force Bolt to settle for silver - or bronze if Raptor's robotic rival Cheetah raced, too.
The new sprinting robot, Raptor, currently tops out at 28.5 mph. Bolt's highest clocked speed ...
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Sending entangled beams through fast-light materials
College Park MD (SPX) May 27, 2014 -
Michael Lewis's bestselling book "Flash Boys" describes how some brokers, engaging in high frequency trading, exploit fast telecommunications to gain fraction-of-a-second advantage in the buying and selling of stocks. But you don't need to have billions of dollars riding on this-second securities transactions to appreciate the importance of fast signal processing. From internet to video streamin ...
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A Path Toward More Powerful Tabletop Accelerators
Berkeley CA (SPX) May 29, 2014 -
Making a tabletop particle accelerator just got easier. A new study shows that certain requirements for the lasers used in an emerging type of small-area particle accelerator can be significantly relaxed.
Researchers hope the finding could bring about a new era of accelerators that would need just a few meters to bring particles to great speeds, rather than the many kilometers required of ...
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Leaving the islands
Munich, Germany (SPX) May 29, 2014 -
In a recent study involving LMU researchers, the desorption of oxygen molecules from a silver surface was successfully visualized for the first time. The effects account for the shortcomings of conventional models of desorption.
In heterogeneous catalytic reactions, which take place at the boundary layer between a solid and the gas phase, the products finally have to desorb from the surfac ...
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Scientists develop new hybrid energy transfer system
Southampton, UK (SPX) May 28, 2014 -
Scientists from the University of Southampton, in collaboration with the Universities of Sheffield and Crete, have developed a new hybrid energy transfer system, which mimics the processes responsible for photosynthesis. From photosynthesis to respiration, the processes of light absorption and its transfer into energy represent elementary and essential reactions that occur in any biological livi ...
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DNA nanotechnology places enzyme catalysis within an arm's length
Tucson AZ (SPX) May 29, 2014 -
Using molecules of DNA like an architectural scaffold, Arizona State University scientists, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Michigan, have developed a 3-D artificial enzyme cascade that mimics an important biochemical pathway that could prove important for future biomedical and energy applications.
The findings were published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. Led ...
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Zeroing in on the proton's magnetic moment
Saitama, Japan (SPX) May 30, 2014 -
As part of a series of experiments designed to resolve one of the deepest mysteries of physics today, researchers from RIKEN, in collaboration with the University of Mainz, GSI Darmstadt and the Max Planck Institute for Physics at Heidelberg, have made the most precise ever direct measurement of the magnetic moment of a proton.
The work, published in Nature, seeks to answer the fundamental ...
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Supersonic spray delivers high quality graphene layer
Chicago IL (SPX) May 30, 2014 -
A simple, inexpensive spray method that deposits a graphene film can heal manufacturing defects and produce a high quality graphene layer on a range of substrates, report researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Korea University.
Their study is available online in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.
Graphene, a two-dimensional wonder-material composed of a sing ...
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China's decision to replace IBM servers with domestic equivalents may boost national security
Moscow (Voice of Russia) May 29, 2014 -
The use of home-made servers in Beijing's national banks may prevent inclusion of hidden backdoors that facilitate intelligence gathering by the US National Security Agency, according to expert in the US-China relations, RIA Novosti reports.
Chinese government institutions, including the People's Bank of China and the Ministry of Finance, are reviewing domestic commercial banks' reliance o ...
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Microsystems Technologies Office: Creating A New Electronics Revolution For National Defense
Washington DC (SPX) May 29, 2014 -
Since its inception in 1992, DARPA'S Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) has helped create and prevent strategic surprise through its investments in compact microelectronic components such as microprocessors, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), and photonic devices.
MTO's revolutionary work applying these advanced capabilities in areas such as wide-band gap materials, phased array rada ...
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US seeks greater missile defense cooperation by Japan, South Korea
Washington (AFP) May 28, 2014 -
A top US military official on Wednesday called for better missile defense cooperation between Japan and South Korea, in the face of strained ties between America's two closest Asia allies and a belligerent North Korea.
"We're encouraging our allies and partners to acquire their own missile defenses and to strengthen regional missile defense cooperation that will result in better performance ...
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Earthly Conflicts Threaten US-Russia Space Cooperation
Washington DC (SPX) May 29, 2014 -
Angered over U.S. sanctions against Russian officials involved in the annexation of Crimea, and unrest in Eastern Ukraine, Russian deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Moscow may retaliate by re-assessing the space cooperation between the two countries.
If his threat becomes reality, it could affect future space explorations aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Russia h ...
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A first for NASA's IRIS: a gigantic eruption of solar material
Palo Alto, Calif. (UPI) May 30, 2013 -
Earlier this month, a coronal mass ejection (CME) - which sounds both gross and dangerous, until you learn it's just a really big solar flare - leaped from the side of the sun. Luckily, IRIS, NASA's newest solar observatory, was in prime position to capture a detailed profile view of extraordinary ejection.
Capturing the impressive CME was a first for Interface Region Imaging Spectrog ...
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Engineers reconnect with ISEE-3, retired NASA probe
Los Gatos, Calif. (UPI) May 30, 2013 -
Engineers with Skycorp, Inc. - the Los Gatos, California-based group attempting to reconnect with a retired NASA probe first launched in the 1970s - announced Thursday they had successfully established contact with International Sun-Earth Explorer-3, or ISEE-3.
Last month, the citizen scientists signed an agreement with NASA which granted them permission to take over control of the sp ...
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National Security Space: Then.Now.Tomorrow
Colorado Springs CO (SPX) May 20, 2014 -
Well that was far too generous of an introduction. I didn't even recognize any of that myself. It is great to be back at the symposium this year and thank you all for attending this morning. It's an honor to stand before this particular audience and it's a remarkable collection of space experts, including many friends, and by the way at this point in my life I refuse to call you old friends.
...
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Apollo 13 astronaut's toothbrush sells for $11,794
Los Angeles (AFP) May 30, 2014 -
A toothbrush used by one of the American astronauts who flew to the Moon was sold at auction for nearly $12,000, or triple the starting bid, the auction house said Friday.
The clear Oral B-40 toothbrush was used by command module pilot Jack Swigert during the 1970 Apollo 13 mission and sold for $11,974, said the Nate D. Sanders auction house, which did not reveal the buyer.
Swigert was p ...
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Earth's gravitational pull stretches moon surface
Greenbelt, Md. (UPI) May 30, 2013 -
Anyone who's been to the beach - and seen the ocean's tides - knows the moon's gravitational effects on Earth are rather obvious. The effects of Earth's gravitational pull on the moon are less apparent.
But a new study by scientists at NASA - published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters - shows even the shape of the moon's all-solid surface changes in response to the positi ...
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SpaceX unveils capsule to ferry astronauts to space
Los Angeles (AFP) May 30, 2014 -
A sleek, white gumdrop-shaped space capsule that aims to carry up to seven astronauts to the International Space Station and return to land anywhere on Earth was unveiled Thursday by SpaceX.
The Dragon V2, short for version two, is the first attempt by a private company to restore Americans' ability to send people to the orbiting space station in the wake of the space shuttle program's retir ...
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NASA faces identity crisis, funding battle
Washington (UPI) May 30, 2013 -
As NASA funding continue to dissipate, space agency officials are left trying - frustratingly - to figure out what's worth paying for. And the Spitzer Space Telescope is just the latest in a growing list of defunded and soon-to-be-extinct projects.
Since the Apollo missions to the moon ended in 1973, NASA's budget has steadily declined - from 1.35 percent of the federal government's ...
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Scotland could realize vast oil and gas wealth through independence
Edinburgh, Scotland (UPI) May 28, 2013 -
Oil and natural gas wealth in the North Sea is expected to become major financial asset for Scotland on independence, the finance secretary said Wednesday.
"North Sea oil and gas is a fantastic natural asset which has a great future for many decades to come," Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney said in a statement.
Scotland holds a referendum for independence from the United ...
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Apple buys music star Beats for $3 bn
New York (AFP) May 28, 2014 -
Apple announced plans Wednesday to buy Beats Music and Beats Electronics in a deal worth $3 billion that gives the US tech giant more clout in the hotly contested music sector.
The move is expected to help Apple, which was a pioneer in online music, ramp up its efforts to counter the successful models of streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and others.
Apple's largest acquisition eve ...
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Google revs up driverless car, axes steering wheel
Los Angeles (AFP) May 28, 2014 -
Google unveiled plans to build its own self-driving car - minus the steering wheel - that it hopes to begin testing in the coming months.
"They won't have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal... because they don't need them. Our software and sensors do all the work," Google's Chris Urmson said in a blog post late Tuesday.
Urmson, who directs the self-driving car project, ...
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Libya chaos deepens with Benghazi air strike on jihadists
Tripoli (AFP) May 28, 2014 -
A rogue Libyan ex-general resumed air strikes on jihadists in the city of Benghazi Wednesday, while gunmen attacked an interior ministry team in Tripoli tasked with protecting the outgoing government.
Amid the ever-worsening insecurity in the North African country, Washington urged US citizens there to leave "immediately" and was even readying a possible evacuation of its embassy.
And ou ...
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State Department spokeswoman says China largely to blame for rig tensions
Washington (UPI) May 28, 2013 -
China is to blame for most of the tensions surrounding the deployment of an oil rig in the South China Sea, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department said.
A Vietnamese fishing boat capsized this week after it struck a Chinese vessel near a Chinese oil rig deployed in disputed waters.
Reacting to reports the Chinese intentionally rammed the Vietnamese boat, State Department spo ...
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