NASA launches carbon-tracking satellite
Washington (AFP) July 02, 2014 -
NASA on Wednesday launched a satellite designed to track carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas that is responsible for global warming.
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 took off aboard a Delta 2 rocket at 2:56 am Pacific time (0956 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
After 56 minutes of flight, the satellite separated from the second-stage rocket as planned, with no gli ...
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Seeing your true colors: Standards for hyperspectral imaging
Washington DC (SPX) Jul 04, 2014 -
Today, doctors who really want to see if a wound is healing have to do a biopsy or some other invasive technique that, besides injuring an already injured patient, can really only offer information about a small area. But a technology called hyperspectral imaging offers doctors a noninvasive, painless way to discriminate between healthy and diseased tissue and reveal how well damaged tissue is h ...
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ENSO and the Indian Monsoon...not as straightforward as you'd think
Washington DC (SPX) Jul 04, 2014 -
When folks hear the term El Nino, they generally think of two things. 1) A decrease in the amount of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean and 2) Chris Farley. Ok, they probably only think of #2, but we here at the ENSO blog are trying to broaden that viewpoint. We've already discussed US impacts during El Nino but we know it also affects global circulation.
One of ENSO's most important influen ...
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More People Means More Plant Growth
Washington DC (SPX) Jul 03, 2014 -
Ecologist Thomas Mueller uses satellite data to study how the patterns of plant growth relate to the movement of caribou and gazelle. The research sparked an idea: Would the footprint of human activity show up in the data?
Mueller, of the University of Maryland in College Park (now at the Biodiversity and Climate Research Center in Frankfurt) teamed up with university and NASA colleagues t ...
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Near-perfect fossil reveals details of ancient bird Archaeopteryx's plumage
Munich, Germany (UPI) Jul 3, 2013 -
In a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, researchers described the discovery of a near perfect fossil of Archaeopteryx, the "original bird."
Though the Archaeopteryx had previously been fingered by paleontologists as the first bird to fly, the inconsistent nature of the fossil record made it difficult for scientists to confirm that the ancient creature could indeed take ...
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Haiti PM to donors: please honor aid pledges
Port-Au-Prince (AFP) July 04, 2014 -
Only half of the nine billion dollars in international aid promised to Haiti after a devastating earthquake in 2010 has been delivered, the prime minister told AFP.
So far, 48 percent of that amount has been handed over, mainly in emergency and humanitarian aid, while the country faces colossal rebuilding needs after the 7.0-magnitude quake, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, in power since 201 ...
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Organisers of huge Hong Kong rally arrested
Hong Kong (AFP) July 04, 2014 -
Police on Friday arrested the organisers of Hong Kong's biggest pro-democracy rally since the city was handed back to China, sparking outrage from campaigners who denounced the "political suppression".
Five members of the Civil Human Rights Front, including its convener, were arrested three days after the march, which the group said mobilised half a million people to voice anger at Beijing's ...
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Weakened Hurricane Arthur heads up US East Coast
Miami (AFP) July 04, 2014 -
Hurricane Arthur, downgraded to a category one storm, carried its still-fierce winds and drenching rains toward the US northeast Friday, after getting the July 4 holiday off to a soggy start for vacationers further south.
By 9 am (1300 GMT), Arthur, which had crashed ashore in North Carolina overnight as a category two storm, had lost a bit of its punch, with maximum sustained winds of 90 mi ...
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Researchers say hormonal mechanism responsible for left-handedness
Vienna (UPI) Jul 3, 2013 -
The vast majority of humans are right-handed. Only about ten percent are left-hand dominant. But what causes the ten percent to prefer their opposite set of digits? Scientists have long traded theories on the matter and argued whether genetics are at play.
Recently, in a survey of handedness involving 13,000 Germans and Austrians, researchers found that male southpaws are slightly more ...
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Anti-poaching experts gather amid warnings super-rich drive illegal trade
Geneva (AFP) July 04, 2014 -
Hundreds of experts will gather in Geneva next week to discuss a "disturbing upswing" in the illegal wildlife trade, driven increasingly by ostentatious displays of wealth by the super-rich.
"We're seeing a shift from health to wealth... a significant shift away from (demand for) traditional uses associated with health to uses associated with wealth," said John Scanlon, head of the Conventi ...
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Burn, patient, burn: medical inferno in China
Beijing (AFP) July 04, 2014 -
A therapist pours alcohol over a patient and sets him alight - for some in China, playing with fire is a treatment for illness.
So-called "fire therapy", which proponents claim can cure stress, indigestion, infertility and even cancer, has been used for hundreds of years and recently garnered a blaze of attention in Chinese media.
There is no orthodox medical evidence that it is effecti ...
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Puffing Sun Gives Birth To Reluctant Eruption
Washington DC (SPX) Jul 04, 2014 -
A suite of NASA's sun-gazing spacecraft have spotted an unusual series of eruptions in which a series of fast puffs forced the slow ejection of a massive burst of solar material from the sun's atmosphere. The eruptions took place over a period of three days, starting on Jan. 17, 2013.
Nathalia Alzate, a solar scientist at the University of Aberystwyth in Wales, presented findings on what c ...
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NASA's IRIS Solar Observatory After 1 Year in Space
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 04, 2014 -
On June 27, 2013, NASA's newest solar observatory was launched into orbit around Earth. The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, observes the low level of the sun's atmosphere - a constantly moving area called the interface region - in better detail than has ever been done before.
During its first year in space, IRIS provided detailed images of this area, finding even more tur ...
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Taking NASA-USGS's Landsat 8 to the Beach
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 04, 2014 -
Some things go swimmingly with a summer trip to the beach - sunscreen, mystery novels, cold beverages and sandcastles. Other things - like aquatic algae - are best avoided. The Landsat 8 satellite is helping researchers spot these organisms from space, gathering information that could direct beachgoers away from contaminated bays and beaches.
With improved sensors and technology on the lat ...
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Weakened Tropical Storm Arthur heads to Canada
Miami (AFP) July 05, 2014 -
Tropical Storm Arthur rapidly lost strength Saturday as it headed off the far north-eastern US coast towards Canada, causing less damage than feared in the United States.
Arthur, downgraded from a category one hurricane at 0900 GMT, lashed New England and the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Halifax as it marched in a north-easterly direction off the coast of Massachusetts.
On Satur ...
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Why does Europe hate GM food and is it about to change its mind?
Paris (AFP) July 06, 2014 -
While the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and China and many other countries have warmly embraced genetically modified crops, Europe remains the world's big holdout.
Could this be about to change? New European Union rules now seek to clear up years of internal deadlock that could, in theory, lead to widespread cultivation of GM foods. But the fight is far from over.
The EU's gre ...
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Yutu designer's bittersweet
Beijing (XNA) Jul 07, 2014 -
Jia Yang has two children. One goes to a middle school in Beijing; the other is on the moon. The trials of parenthood have been far more arduous with the second child for Jia, deputy chief designer of the Chang'e-3 lunar probe, who led a team to develop China's first moon rover, Yutu, or Jade Rabbit.
Chang'e-3, launched on Dec. 2, 2013, landed on the moon after a two-week voyage, becoming ...
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Are China's Astronauts Moonbound
Sydney, Australia (SPX) Jul 01, 2014 -
China has made tremendous progress with its lunar exploration program. It has sent two spacecraft to orbit the Moon and has also landed a robot rover on the surface. Later this year, we expect China to take another step forward with its next robotic lunar mission.
For the first time, a Chinese spacecraft will make a round trip. The spacecraft will be launched on a "free return trajectory" ...
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Russia to make fresh attempt to launch new rocket
Moscow (AFP) July 05, 2014 -
Russia will on Wednesday attempt to launch its newest rocket after an embarrassing last-minute glitch forced authorities to abort the initial test last week.
"A new attempt to launch the Angara rocket will take place on July 9," the Interfax news agency reported Saturday, citing a source close to the state commission deciding on the issue.
Designed to succeed Proton and other Soviet-era ...
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China to release daily Japanese war crimes 'confession'
Beijing (AFP) July 03, 2014 -
China began publishing "confessions" of 45 convicted Japanese World War II criminals on Thursday, officials said, in Beijing's latest effort to highlight the past amid a territorial dispute between the two countries.
The documents, handwritten by Japanese tried and convicted by military courts in China after the war, are being released online one a day for 45 days by the State Archives Admin ...
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Northrop Grumman received new order for E-2D aircraft
Falls Church, Va. (UPI) Jul 1, 2013 -
Northrop Grumman is to produce 25 more E-2D Advanced Hawkeye early warning aircraft for the U.S. Navy under a multi-year contract, the company announced.
The E-2D, which provides 360-degree surveillance capability though the use of AN/APY-9 radar, was specifically designed for use from an aircraft carrier.
"The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye is the Navy's primary airborne early warning an ...
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Norwegian government contracts Kongsberg for JSF missile
Kongsberg, Norway (UPI) Jul 3, 2013 -
Norwegian defense company Kongsberg Defense has signed a new contract with the government for continued development of the Joint Strike Missile for use on F-35 aircraft.
The missile for engaging targets at long distances will also be capable of usage by other types of aircraft.
"This contract is an important milestone not only for the JSM as a product and for Kongsberg, but also ...
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Gyroscope production milestone for Northrop Grumman
Salt Lake City (UPI) Jul 1, 2013 -
Northrop Grumman reports it has produced the 50,000th G-2000 tactical gyroscope, which is used on U.S. missiles and other systems.
The gyroscope is billed by the company as the world's smallest tactical grade, dynamically-tuned gyroscope in production.
It has been produced at the company's facility in Utah since the 1990s. In addition to its use for missile and torpedo guidance, ...
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Freed Turkish truck drivers back home after Iraq ordeal
Ankara (AFP) July 03, 2014 -
Thirty-two Turkish truck drivers held hostage by Islamic militants in Iraq flew back home to Turkey on Thursday following their release after three weeks in captivity, local officials said.
A Turkish plane carrying the truck drivers from the northern Iraqi city of Arbil landed in Turkey's southeastern province of Sanliurfa near the Syrian border late on Thursday.
But a separate group o ...
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Iraqi forces will need help to roll back militants: US
Washington (AFP) July 03, 2014 -
The US military's top officer said Thursday that Iraqi forces had shored up their defenses against Sunni militants but would be hard-pressed to regain territory without outside help.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said American advisers were still evaluating the state of the Iraqi army, and he suggested US military action was not imminent.
Dempsey told ...
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