Arms Reductions Treaty Between US, Russia Unlikely in Near Future
Moscow (Sputnik) Mar 23, 2015 -
Russia and the United States are unlikely to achieve a new nuclear arms reduction treaty in the near future, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Tuesday.
"A new deal on strategic arms reduction between Russia and the United States will be difficult to achieve in the near future, if it is ever achievable," Antonov said.
The deputy defense minister added that Russia's ...
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Researchers Receive Grant to Send Worms into Space
Lubbock TX (SPX) Mar 23, 2015 -
It is common knowledge that the longer humans spend in space, the longer it takes them to regain muscle strength upon their return to earth. The biggest question is, why. With the help of Caenorhabditis elegans, one Texas Tech University researcher hopes to find out.
C. elegans has been to space multiple times, and thanks to Siva Vanapalli, they will head to the International Space Station ...
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Time-lapse snapshots of a nova's fading light
Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Mar 23, 2015 -
Scientists in a collaboration led by Dai Takei of the RIKEN SPring-8 Center in Japan have, for the first time, examined a detailed 'time lapse' X-ray image of the expansion of a classical nova explosion using the GK Persei nova - a binary star system which underwent a nova explosion in 1901.
Through this work, they hope to gain a better understanding of the expansion of gases in the univer ...
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Million stars are forming in a mysterious dusty gas cloud
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 23, 2015 -
More than a million young stars are forming in a hot, dusty cloud of molecular gases in a tiny galaxy near our own, an international team of astronomers has discovered.
The star cluster is buried within a supernebula in a dwarf galaxy known as NGC 5253, in the constellation Centaurus. The cluster has one billion times the luminosity of our sun, but is invisible in ordinary light, hidden by ...
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New NASA Mission to Study Ocean Color, Airborne Particles and Clouds
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Mar 20, 2015 -
NASA is beginning work on a new satellite mission that will extend critical climate measurements of Earth's oceans and atmosphere and advance studies of the impact of environmental changes on ocean health, fisheries and the carbon cycle.
Tentatively scheduled to launch in 2022, the Pre-Aerosol Clouds and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will study Earth's aquatic ecology and chemistry, and a ...
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ESA's CHEOPS Satellite: The Pharaoh of Exoplanet Hunting
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 23, 2015 -
Just like the Pharaoh Cheops, who ruled the ancient Old Kingdom of Egypt, ESA's CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) could be someday ruling in the field of exoplanet hunting. It will be the first mission dedicated to search for transits by means of ultrahigh precision photometry on bright stars already known to host planets. "CHEOPS looks at stars that are already known to host planets a ...
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SOFIA Finds Missing Link Between Supernovae and Planet Formation
Washington DC (SPX) Mar 23, 2015 -
Using NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), an international scientific team discovered that supernovae are capable of producing a substantial amount of the material from which planets like Earth can form.
These findings are published in the March 19 online issue of Science magazine.
"Our observations reveal a particular cloud produced by a supernova explos ...
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Titan's Atmosphere Created As Gases Escaped Core
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Mar 23, 2015 -
A decade ago, a tiny but mighty probe descended into the soupy atmosphere of Titan. This moon of Saturn is of great interest to astrobiologists because its chemistry and liquid cycle remind us of what the early Earth could have looked like before life arose.
The probe, called Huygens, made it to the surface and transmitted imagery all the way. It remained alive on the surface for more than ...
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USAF funds sense-and-avoid technology development
Wright-Patterson Afb, Ohio (UPI) Mar 20, 2015 -
The U.S. Air Force reports it is providing nearly $1.5 million in SBIR funding for development and maturation of sense-and-avoid technology for remotely piloted aircraft.
The funding, through its Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer program, was given to Defense Research Associates Inc. of Ohio, whose research focuses on electro-optical sensors for detec ...
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Robotic SPACE Explorers Need Smarts to Survive
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Mar 23, 2015 -
If a robot plunges into the ocean of an icy moon, perhaps near Saturn or Jupiter, its main problem will be figuring out what to do next. Even at light speed, it takes hours for communications to pass back and forth to Earth.
This means any robotic explorer would need to be smart enough to avoid danger, and sophisticated enough to figure out what information to send back. These were problem ...
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Botswana hosts wildlife summits as elephants fight for survival
Kasane, Botswana (AFP) March 21, 2015 -
Wildlife experts and officials from around 30 governments will gather next week in Botswana to confront the threat that wild elephants could be heading for extinction, due in part to Chinese demand for ivory.
Between 420,000 and 650,000 African elephants survive, but more than 100,000 have been killed in the past four years, according to a study published in the US Proceedings of the Nationa ...
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Russia brands branch of Norwegian eco group 'foreign agent'
Moscow (AFP) March 20, 2015 -
Russia on Friday added a branch of a Norwegian-based environmental NGO to its list of "foreign agents" under a controversial law that critics say is designed to curb civil society.
The justice ministry added to its list Bellona-Murmansk, part of Norwegian-based Bellona Foundation, which monitors nuclear safety issues in the region, taking the total number of groups given the controversial cl ...
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Thousands march against Irish water charges
Dublin (AFP) March 21, 2015 -
Tens of thousands took to the streets of Dublin on Saturday in the latest mass protest against new water charges which have sparked widespread public anger.
The first bills for water from the new Irish Water utility are due next month after the government introduced the charges as a condition of its international financial bailout.
Saturday's demonstration is the latest protest after sim ...
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Top China weather expert warns on climate change
Beijing (AFP) March 22, 2015 -
China's top weather official has issued a stark warning on climate change, saying that rising temperatures could have "huge impacts" on the world's most populous country, state media reported Sunday.
Global climate change will reduce crop yields, lead to "ecological degradation" and create unstable river flows, Xinhua news agency quoted Zheng Guoguang, chief of China's Meteorological Adminis ...
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Health, education fears for Vanuatu's child cyclone survivors
Port Vila, Vanuatu (AFP) March 21, 2015 -
Josianna Napuat barely flinched when registered nurse Elizabeth William injected her with a measles vaccine outside her home in Vanuatu's capital Port Vila.
The seven-year-old's face then lit up when William gave her a pink bar of soap with which to wash her hands.
"I think it's important," said Josianna's mother Mollie, 35, of the visit by the United Nation children's agency UNICEF a we ...
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E. Guinea's president warns of 'serious terrorist' threat to country
Malabo, Equatorial Guinea (AFP) March 20, 2015 -
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea has warned of "serious and adequate information" that his small central African country faces a terrorist threat.
"Central Africa faces a phenomenon it has never known, the phenomenon of terrorism," Obiang said in a televised broadcast on Thursday night, without naming the key regional threat, Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram, also activ ...
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Plan ensures Great Barrier Reef future: Australia
Sydney (AFP) March 21, 2015 -
Australia released its long-term blueprint to save the Great Barrier Reef Saturday, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott saying protecting the World Heritage site was a priority.
The 35-year plan for the major tourist attraction off the Queensland coast includes a complete and permanent ban on the dumping of capital dredge material in the area and sets targets to improve water quality and marine ...
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Chinese anti-censorship group says it's under attack
Washington (AFP) March 20, 2015 -
The Chinese activist group GreatFire, which operates websites that circumvent the country's censorship, said its online service has come under attack in an effort to shut it down.
"We are under attack and we need help," the group said in a blog post on Thursday, claiming it has been hit by a barrage of automated requests known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
"This tacti ...
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As lakes become deserts, drought is Iran's new problem
Zabol, Iran (AFP) March 21, 2015 -
Nazar Sarani's village in southeast Iran was once an island. It is now a desert, a casualty of the country's worsening water crisis.
"We live in the dust," said the 54-year-old cattle herder of his home in the once exceptional biosphere of Lake Hamoun, a wetland of varied flora and fauna, which is now nothing but sand-baked earth.
Climate change, with less rainfall each year, is blamed, ...
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Radiation, climate force Bikini Islanders to seek US refuge
Majuro (AFP) Marshall Islands (AFP) March 22, 2015 -
A tiny central Pacific community, forced to evacuate their homes because of US nuclear testing, are now demanding refuge in the United States as they face a new threat from climate change.
"We want to relocate to the United States," Nishma Jamore, mayor of the atoll of Bikini, said on the weekend as Pacific waters continued to eat away at the small Kili and Ejit islands in the far-flung Mars ...
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'Supertide' draws tens of thousands to France's Mont Saint-Michel
Le Mont-Saint-Michel, France (AFP) March 21, 2015 -
Thirty thousand people flocked to Mont Saint-Michel on Saturday to see the "tide of the century" surround the picturesque French landmark as two people drowned on the country's west coast.
A record-breaking crowd gathered at the rocky island topped with a Gothic Benedictine abbey to watch the sea surge up the bay on the Normandy coast, which is exposed to some of Europe's strongest tides. ...
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Spring brings New York snow storm
New York (AFP) March 20, 2015 -
New York welcomed the first day of spring Friday with a snow storm that could dump up to six inches (15 centimeters) in parts of the northeastern United States.
More than 820 flights were cancelled to and from the three airports servicing America's largest city, according to the FlightAware website as snow fell unrelentingly over Manhattan.
More than 1,150 flights were cancelled within, ...
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On US campaign trail, your 15 Meerkats of fame
Washington (AFP) March 20, 2015 -
As the 2016 presidential race comes into view, social media app-of-the-moment Meerkat offers American candidates a promising but perhaps risky way to reach out to the masses.
The online video streaming service, which was launched last month, allows users to broadcast footage live from their smartphone with the touch of a button.
And now anyone within slingshot distance of a political cam ...
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How rocket science may improve kidney dialysis
Washington DC (SPX) Mar 23, 2015 -
A team of researchers in the United Kingdom has found a way to redesign an artificial connection between an artery and vein, known as an Arterio-Venous Fistulae, which surgeons form in the arms of people with end-stage renal disease so that those patients can receive routine dialysis, filtering their blood and keeping them alive after their kidneys fail.
The new design, described in the jo ...
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Conifers' helicoptering seeds are result of long evolutionary experiment
Berkeley CA (SPX) Mar 23, 2015 -
The whirling, winged seeds of today's conifers are an engineering wonder and, as University of California, Berkeley, scientists show, a result of about 270 million years of evolution by trees experimenting with the best way to disperse their seeds.
The first conifer species that produced seeds that whirl when they fall used a variety of single- and double-winged designs. Whirling, or helic ...
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